


Bring Up the Deep

by beenghosting



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Case Fic, Dom/sub Undertones, Established Relationship, Horror, M/M, Sea Monsters, Sex Pollen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-12
Updated: 2016-02-12
Packaged: 2018-05-19 21:10:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5980990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beenghosting/pseuds/beenghosting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They went back and forth on whether or not to make the drive until Sam found an article in the town’s local paper dated a week earlier about a lobster fisherman who swore a monster sank his boat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bring Up the Deep

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired mainly by [this art by Daryl Toh](http://tohdaryl.tumblr.com/post/128165361872/nesting-season-a-young-man-enjoys-his-cigarette), but also bits of _The Iron Giant_ , and I had “[The Drunken Whaler](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urV8MIcLDFk)” playing on repeat. I'm also [on Tumblr](http://beenghosting.tumblr.com) if you're into that kinda thing. **Please see endnotes for detailed warnings.**
> 
>  **Update:** The amazing [purgatoryjar](http://purgatoryjar.tumblr.com/) gifted me with some [absolutely stunning art for this fic](http://purgatoryjar.tumblr.com/post/141857288387/click-on-the-image-for-a-way-better-view-bring), and with her permission has let me embed them into the fic itself. Please check out her art and give her some love!

###  **Prologue**

He called her The Mollie Rose, after his late wife.

She’s one of the older boats in the harbor, green and yellow. Sturdy. Rosie used to say that he spent more time on his sealegs than he did on solid ground. He loved the water. He wanted a good boat. One that would take him home to her at night.

She died ten years ago. It was January. He moved to Maine a year later. It’s April now, and Jack Hart is pushing sixty.

He leans over Rosie’s starboard with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He can’t taste anything anymore except salt and the booze he tries to drown himself in. The water’s a little rough. It licks at the side of the boat, sprays down the front of his shirt. The fog rolled in early this morning just as he was untying her from the pier and pushing off, but the storm hasn’t hit yet. His traps aren’t picking up any lobster. He flicks his cigarette into the ocean just as it starts to pour.

He’s about to head back into the wheelhouse when the boat lurches sideways and sends him stumbling. He has a wobbling hula girl and a bottle of rum inside, and both crash to the floor.  It’s probably a whale banging against the hull. Wouldn’t be the first time.

Jack gets inside the wheelhouse, kicks the broken glass away. He grabs at the wheel and starts to turn the boat around. He can barely see the beam of the lighthouse through the fog and the rain. The boat sails on smoothly for a few minutes until something scrapes against the starboard, the metal screeching.

It’s not a whale.

Jack leaves the wheelhouse to investigate, the rain soaking him to the bone in seconds. He holds onto his hat as he leans over the gunwale. The whitecaps crash, the water swirls, and it takes Jack a minute to realize it’s not touching the hull.

There’s something in the water. It’s big, shaped a bit like a rock. Except it’s too smooth, too round, too red. It glows faintly, pulses, causing ripples on the surface. Jack shakes his head, blinks, but its still there when he opens his eyes. Something scrapes at the hull again.

He turns back to the wheelhouse, doesn’t bother trying to shut the door. Water pours in over the side of the boat, soaks through his boots. He grabs his radio, clicks it on and says, “Mayday, mayday, mayday, this is The Mollie Rose!”

The coastguard’s voice crackles through the radio and Jack gives his position.

“There’s something in the water out here,” he says. “I can’t see what it is, but it’s big. Might be another vessel. It’s catching the starboard side of my boat. Over.”

“We’ll send someone out. Stay in position. Over,” the coastguard says.

“Roger. Over and out,” Jack says.

He hangs up his radio and bends down to pick up the hula girl. The top half of her body has been knocked off the base. He puts her back together and sets her in front of the window.

On the other side of the glass, something moves.

Jack flicks the switch for the spotlight at the bow. The beam barely pierces the fog, but still he can see something’s out there. It’s massive, a dark shadow. More water splashes overboard. The boat creaks under him. The rain stops suddenly. The water goes still.

Jack’s heart hammers in his chest. Slowly, he creeps out of the wheelhouse. Water sloshes around his boots as he walks, the noise deafening in the sudden silence. He holds his breath as he makes his way to the bow. The ocean laps quietly against the boat. His hands shake when he lays them on the wet wood of the gunwale.

There’s a deep rumble like thunder. It shakes under him, seems to rise up from the water, from the ocean floor itself.

The shape in the fog shifts, moves. Something scrapes against the underside of the boat again. The water starts to ripple. In the fog, Jack sees lights. Four of them in a row, glowing bright, red like Christmas lights.

There’s a loud crash off the starboard side as something massive breaks free of the water’s surface. Jack loses his balance as the boat lurches again, starts to tilt sideways. Water spills over the gunwale on the port side. There’s a loud sucking noise and the bow sinks.

The last thing Jack sees before The Mollie Rose is pulled into the ocean are another set of red lights hovering above his boat in the sky. Before he sinks into cold water, he sees them blink.

###  **One**

Everyone blames the booze.

Dean’s heard this song. He’s intimately familiar with it. He gave it a name, called it family, once. People scoff when he asks questions, roll their eyes and say, “I’ll tell you what it was. It was old Captain Morgan, is what it was.”

Dean taps his pen against his notepad. The tag on his shirt scratches at the back of his neck.

“What about the stuff on the beach?” he asks.

His interviewees snort. Willie Hill, Duncan McMillian, Earl Johnston. They’ve got oil stained fingers and rough, calloused hands. They reek of cigarette smoke and stale sweat and fish guts. So far they’ve had a smartass explanation for everything. Willie huffs at Dean and says, “Red clay.”

Dean wanted to see the boats, to try and make sense of the fog that’s hanging over the harbor like a ghost in a thin white sheet. He hoped to find Jack Hart nursing a drink at Neptune’s Cellar, but instead he found Willie, and Duncan, and Earl.

“So you've never seen things out there?” Dean asks.

“ _Things_?” Earl sneers. “What kinda space-age crap you kids reading these days?”

Duncan leans against the table and says, “I’ll tell you what’s out there. Fish. Whales. And a hell of a lot of seaweed.” He drinks from his beer and says, “Enough seaweed’ll bring a boat down. Catches on the propellers. Ruins the motor. I’ve seen it.”

Right. Dean doesn’t know much about boats, but that sounds like bullshit.

Willie pulls out a cigarette. He’s missing his pinky finger. He flicks his lighter and says, “Y’know, the Canadians got a whole island full of that red clay.”

///

It was a news article on a conspiracy website that brought them to the east coast. The headline read: _MASSIVE RED BALLS WASH UP ON MAINE BEACH._

Cas wanted to go right away. They went back and forth on whether or not to make the drive until Sam found an article in the town’s local paper dated a week earlier about a lobster fisherman who swore a monster sank his boat.

That was good enough for Dean, so they packed their bags and made the thirty-hour drive.

///

They’re staying in what the website claims is a “quaint, homey seaside cottage with a gorgeous ocean view” but in reality it’s an old shack on a cold, pebbly beach in the middle of Bumfuck Nowhere, Maine. They can barely see the water through the fog.

Dean pulls up the gravel drive and parks the Impala just outside the front door. The sun hides behind clouds and the breeze that comes off the water feels heavy and cold.

Sam and Cas are already inside when he opens the door, sitting at the kitchen table in their civvies. Dean pulls at the knot in his tie and grunts a greeting as he makes his way over to the coffee machine.

“Any luck?” Sam asks, not looking away from his laptop.

“Bupkis. No one’s seen Jack since the accident.” Dean changes the filter and fills the machine with fresh water before pressing a button. He pulls off his suit jacket and leans against the kitchen counter. “Please tell me you got something.”

“Aside from the usual lore about sirens and mermaids and Cthulhu, we found nothing,” Sam says. “The area has a pretty rich history, though. Tribes lived here before the French settled, so it’s not beyond reason to think there could be some hoodoo going on.”

“Yeah, but why?” Dean asks as the coffee machine starts to gurgle. “I mean, what’s a few weird blobs on a beach gonna do?”

“Well, one crashed a boat, didn’t it?” Sam says. “The land was over-farmed, that’s how it was established as a fishing community. Maybe it’s a vengeful spirit.”

The coffee machine beeps. Dean grabs a mug from the cupboard. He fills it almost to the brim and drinks it black.

“I think I might know where Jack Hart is,” Cas speaks up. He’s got a mug of tea in one hand and the sleeves of his dark shirt rolled up to his elbows, exposing tanned forearms. They make Dean’s fingers itch.

“You couldn’t have told me that earlier?” he asks.

Cas rolls his eyes and picks up his tablet. Dean pushes away from the counter and takes it out of his hand. There’s a patient file on the screen. At the top it says, _Riverview Psychiatric Center_.

///

Augusta is over a two hour drive away, but the fog isn’t as thick.

Cas rides shotgun and looks out the window. His tie is a little crooked and he hums along to “Whole Lotta Love.” Sam researches in the backseat, sprawled out with his legs propped up against Baby’s door, hair combed and tucked behind his ear, like that makes it less obvious that it’s not way beyond regulation length.

They flash their badges at the receptionist and she points them to the rec room, where Jack Hart watches birds peck at seeds outside in the garden. Dean lets Sam take the lead and hangs back with Cas, who stands with his hands in his pockets.

“Mr. Hart?” Sam says. He opens his badge and says, “I’m Agent Peart. These are my partners, Agent Lifeson and Agent Lee.”

Mr. Hart doesn’t reply. Sam looks over his shoulder. Dean shrugs.

“We’d like to ask you a few questions,” Sam tries. “About your accident?”

“They said it was the lighthouse,” Mr. Hart says.

“Who said that?” Sam asks.

“I was bearing south,” Mr. Hart continues, ignoring him. “The lighthouse is north.”

He shakes his head.

“I wasn’t drunk. I know what I saw,” Mr. Hart says.

“Mr. Hart,” Sam tries again. “What did you see?”

Mr. Hart turns to him, looks at him with wide, dark eyes. He reaches out and grabs Sam’s wrist, holds him tight enough that his knuckles go white. Sam jolts back in surprise. Dean tenses, moves to step forward, but Cas pulls his hand out of his pocket, touches the back of his hand with his fingers and Dean stills.

“Its eyes,” Mr. Hart says. “It looked right at me.”

///

The thing—the monster—Mr. Hart said, was over two-hundred feet tall. There were two of them, he said. They had four glowing red eyes, lined up in a row like Christmas lights. It was hidden in fog, but it came out of the water, and it sank his boat.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” he said. “I’m never going back there again.”

“What could even be that big?” Sam asks as they drive back to their cottage. “I mean, Cthulhu, maybe. But he’s fictional, right?”

He directs the question to Cas.

Cas shrugs. “It could be an angel.”

“An angel?” Dean asks.

Cas nods. “In its true form. Perhaps Hart was able to perceive it.”

“When was the last time an angel tried to communicate in its true form?” Dean asks. “Besides, you, I mean. And anyway, didn’t they all flap off back home once they got their wings back?”

“I thought so,” Cas says. “But I’m not certain. Removing my grace cut me off from the Host. Even so, I can’t imagine that I’m welcome if I wanted to stop in and ask questions.”

“It doesn’t really explain the red stuff,” Sam says from the backseat. He’s pulling off his tie and tucking it into the pocket of his pants, digging his tablet out again. The fog rolls over the hood of the car as they get closer to town.

Dean says, “It’s been a while since I’ve been to the beach.”

///

They wait until dark before strapping on rubber boots and rain ponchos and grabbing their flashlights from the trunk of the car. It’s only misting out, but it’s damp and cold, the kind of weather that clings to bones.

The police blocked the area off after the first ball washed up on shore only a day after Mr. Hart’s accident. The tape’s come loose since then, and it flaps in the wind like a flag. Dean’s boots sink into mud as they pick their way along the shore, the water lapping at its edges. It smells of salt and seaweed and wet sand.

The fog hovers just over the water, claws its way up the beach, and it’s dark enough that Dean keeps a hold of Sam’s shoulder, makes sure Cas doesn’t let go of his elbow as they walk. Their flashlights barely work.

The things are a little ways up the shore, around a bend where the grassy slope turns into a low cliff. Dean can see them even through the fog, large shapes that glow faint red in the distance, that make the hair on the back of his neck stand up. The stench of dead fish is overbearing the closer they get, makes him gag and cover his nose with his arm.

“Jesus,” Dean says.

“Be careful,” Cas warns from behind him.

Sam shines his flashlight on the nearest ball. It’s roughly the size of a horse, smooth and round like a pearl. The light goes right through it, a bit like skin, and there’s something inside it, something dark and solid.

“What the hell is that?” Dean asks.

“I think I’ve seen this before.” Cas steps around Dean, hand sliding off his elbow, the other steady on his flashlight. The sand slurps at his boots. He reaches out with his left hand, and before Dean realizes what’s happening, he places his palm on the ball’s surface.

“Hey!” Dean snaps, grabbing Cas by the shoulders and yanking him away. “What are you doing?”

Cas inhales, sharp, blinks slowly at him. He looks down at his hand, at the sticky clear residue the thing left on his palm. Dean grimaces as Cas rubs it between his fingers.

“It’s alive.” Cas looks at him, then over to Sam, and says, “I felt its heartbeat.”

Sam shines his light further down the beach and says, “How many did the article say there were?”

“I can hear it breathing,” Cas says.

“Three,” Dean frowns, not looking away from Cas. He doesn’t let go of his shoulder.

“Uh. Really?” Sam asks. “Because I count five.”

Dean shines his flashlight in the same direction Sam’s is pointing. The next ball is only a few feet away, further in the water. The one after that is near enough to touch it. But further down the beach, closer to the cliff, are two more. They cast a faint red glow against the rock.

Further away and pressed up close to something, it’s easier to see that the glow has a rhythm to it. It’s slow, calm, even.

Inhale. Exhale.

///

The damp air is hell for his joints. Dean gets a fire going even though it’s not really cold enough to warrant it. Cas presses a mug of tea into his hands and sits beside him on the floor, pulls the blanket around his shoulders so they’re pressed close together.

Sam head up to the loft for bed as soon as they got in, pulling off his poncho and kicking off his boots as he went, the smell of wet sand lingering by the doorway. Dean head for the wood-burning stove without a word.

He takes a sip from the mug and grimaces. “I hate this shit.”

“Mm,” Cas agrees. “Gas stations unfortunately don’t offer much variation.”

Dean swallows another mouthful of generic, dusty-tasting Red Rose crap. At least it’s hot.

Cas pulls the blanket tighter over them, something worn and ragged but soft. It smells like mothballs, and it’s not doing much in the way of warming the chill that’s snuck into Dean’s muscles, his bones. He tries to stretch out his neck, work out the tension with his fingers, but it’s no use. His hands are too sore.

“Are you all right?” Cas asks.

“Yeah,” Dean says. “Just got a crick.”

Cas reaches out behind him, touches the back of his neck, careful, until Dean relaxes into it. Cas works his fingers into the muscle, light, gentle, moving lower. Dean rolls his shoulders and says, “You can go harder.”

Cas hesitates, then digs his thumbs along the bone of his spine, moving in small, tight circles that hurt and burn in the best way.

“I don’t like this case,” Dean confesses.

Quietly, Cas says, “Tilt your head down a bit”

Dean does as he’s told, closing his eyes. Cas moves his fingers up along his neck.

Dean says, “I haven’t felt like this since the Darkness.”

“The unknown.” Cas nods. “I understand it’s a common fear for humans.”

“Yeah,” Dean says. “Maybe.”

Cas kisses his chin, presses his fingers against Dean’s jaw. Dean moves his head so Cas can reach his mouth. He sighs into it, slides his hand over Cas’s hip, pulls him closer. Cas smiles against his lips, drops his hand lower to touch the base of his spine.

“How you feeling?” Dean asks.

Cas works his hand under his t-shirt, rubs at a sore spot on his lower back. Dean takes another sip from his mug and tries to ignore the taste. At home, Cas buys packs of expensive homemade tea by the dozen from a little shop an hour outside Lebanon, stuff that has chunks of dried fruit and leaves and spices in it. Dean misses it.

“I feel fine,” Cas says. He thinks about it for a minute, running his palm up Dean’s back, then says, “If a little, uh. Frustrated.”

Dean’s mouth twitches.

“So this is a quid pro quo,” he says.

“No,” Cas says. “You’re tense. I want to make you feel better.”

“Uh-huh.”

Cas kisses him again, soft, light. Dean leans closer and Cas pulls back, tilts his head away when Dean tries to kiss him again. Dean nips at his ear instead. The fire’s starting to die down. Dean opens the stove and stokes it, gets it going again to keep the cottage warm throughout the night before shutting the door and getting off the floor.

“You taking the bed?” he asks.

“Couch,” Cas says. “Unless you want to share?”

Dean fidgets uncomfortably.

Cas rubs his thumb over his cheek, presses another kiss to his lips. “Some other time, then.”

///

Dean doesn’t sleep easy. He tosses and turns for most of the night. If it’s the sound of waves crashing on the shore outside keeping him awake, or the lack of a warm body in bed next to him, he has no idea.

He gets up just after five to start the coffee machine and get breakfast going, deciding on pancakes made from boxed mix and a jar of maple syrup he got in a town near the border. Cas is passed out on the couch, covered almost completely in a pile of quilts except for a tuft of dark hair sticking out. Dean tries to keep as quiet as he can.

Sam goes for his run at six. The fog presses against the windows of the cottage, thick and grey. There’s the faint sound of a bell offshore, the deep boom of a ship’s horn that startles Cas awake.

“Mornin’, Sunshine.” Dean beams at him and hands him a mug of coffee. Cas glares and takes it from him, wraps his hands around it and buries himself back into his nest of blankets.

“What time is it?” he asks over the rim of his mug, his voice thick with sleep.

“Half-past six on the nose.” Dean sits down next to him, close enough that his thigh presses against Cas’s from where it’s hidden under the blanket. Dean leans in, brushing the back of Cas’s neck with his fingers, and says, “Sam won’t be back for another twenty minutes or so.”

“Mm.” Cas takes a drink of his coffee.

Dean kisses the spot under his ear and says, “Just, y’know. If you wanna hand waking up.”

Cas closes his eyes, lets Dean nuzzle at him for a few minutes before he sets his mug on the table and turns to kiss him properly. He’s sleep-rumpled, warm and cranky in the morning, but he lets Dean press closer to him, lowers his hand around his hip, hums when Dean lets out a quiet moan.

Except then Sam runs past the window and Dean’s jumping a foot off the couch, tucking tail and heading back to the kitchen where there’s a bowl of pancake mix waiting. Cas grabs his mug and leans back into the couch cushions just as Sam bursts through the front door, sweating and out of breath.

“You’re back early,” Dean says, aiming for surprised.

“News,” Sam pants. “Now.”

///

The satellite reception is spotty at best and the wireless is even worse. Dean ends up using most of his data to load a video on the first local news website he finds. Jack Hart’s face takes up half the screen beside the anchorwoman. Underneath it reads: _DANGEROUS_ _CRIMINAL AT LARGE._

“Jack Hart, a lobster fisherman who checked himself into Riverview Psychiatric after a recent boating accident, has fled the premises after killing two patients and critically injuring a member of staff,” the woman says. “Authorities across the state have been notified and are on the look-out, while locals are encouraged to exercise caution as he is believed to be armed and dangerous.”

The image flashes to a man standing outside the pub in town.

“Jack’s always been a bit of a loner,” the man says. “But he never would have done something like this. Whatever happened to him out there on the water, I dunno. It changed him.”

The video ends and Dean sets his phone down on the table.

“That ain’t good,” he says.

“Yeah,” Sam says. “Not really.”

“He seemed stable yesterday,” Dean says. “Well—I mean, like. Not murderous.”

Sam bites at his bottom lip. He looks at Cas and says, “What did his file say again?”

“Um.” Cas frowns. “Post-traumatic stress disorder, suffers delusions and auditory hallucinations. Sudden and extreme aquaphobia. Accident exuberated previous underlying depression and alcohol dependency.”

“Nothing about him being violent?” Sam asks.

“Not that I can remember,” Cas says.

Sam gets off the couch and starts pacing. “Okay. He crashed his boat. The next day the first blobby red thing washed up on shore—maybe the one he hit. A week later, when the next article came out, he had just checked himself into the hospital, right after the third thingy washed up.”

Dean rubs at his eye. “We need to come up with a better name for these things.”

“What, like Jefferson Starships?” Sam asks.

“I stand by that name.”

Sam thinks for a minute. “It’s like a—a gloop.”

Dean looks at him. “Really? That’s what you come up with? A _gloop_?”

“Yeah. Like—”

“No way. Gloop is more… monster snot. These are like Freddie Mercuries.”

“ _What?_ ”

“Monster caviars. Caviar and cigarettes. Freddie Mercury.”

“How do you even connect one of those things to the other?”

“It’s ‘Killer Queen’, dipshit.”

“Shut up, both of you,” Cas snaps, pissy, undoubtedly because it’s early still and he hasn’t finished his coffee. Both Sam and Dean close their mouths and Cas says, “Naming it isn’t going to help us figure out what it is, or why Jack Hart went on a killing spree.”

“I think they’re connected,” Sam says, back on track. “I just don’t know how.”

Cas nods. “We should go to the beach again.”

“Nuh-uh,” Dean says. “Nope. I’m not going back down there.”

“Oh come on, Dean,” Sam says.

“Dude, those things give me the heebs,” Dean says.

“They’re just gloops,” Sam says.

Dean glares at him and Cas sighs.

///

Dean grumbles the whole time they pick their way down the beach again, the seemingly permanently wet sand getting into his boots.

“Man, I just cleaned these,” he says.

The balls are in the same spots they left them in last night. In the dull grey light of the day, they don’t look as intimidating. They’re still odd, and still reek of fish, but their pulsating glow is near-on impossible to see except for the ones close to the rocks.

“Like hell this is red clay from Canada,” Dean mutters.

“I swear I’ve seen something like this before,” Cas says. He shakes his head, frowns, but doesn’t continue the train of thought.

Dean goes up to the nearest one, keeping his distance to avoid touching it, trying not to breathe through his nose. It has a crack in its side, scrape marks denting its otherwise perfectly smooth surface.

“They’ve gotta be, what? Six feet tall, at least?” Sam asks.

“Why don’t you stand next to one and we’ll see?” Dean says.

Sam makes a face at him.

“Do you hear that?” Cas asks, tilting his head and looking around.

“Hear what?” Dean asks.

“That noise.” Cas squints, listening. “It sounds almost—it’s like a—a whistle.”

“I don’t hear anything, Cas,” Sam says.

Cas touches his fingers to his temple, closes his eyes for a minute. Then he blinks them open, seems to shake himself out of it. His hand drops to his side.

“It must be the wind,” he says, and blood starts to drip out of his nose.

“Whoa, hey.” Dean reaches out, grabs at Cas’s sleeve, shoes slipping on the pebbles as he steps closer to him. Sam makes his way over, carefully avoiding a puddle. Cas looks at Dean, confused, as he pulls a tissue out from his pocket and hands it to him.

“What—” Cas starts. He reaches up, touches his lip, and looks at his finger. “Oh.”

“You okay?” Dean asks. “No headaches or anything? Do you feel lightheaded?”

Cas takes the tissues and presses it under his nose. “I’m fine, Dean.”

“We’re leaving this beach,” Dean says to Sam. “Right now.”

“Dean—”

“Sam.”

Sam’s shoulders droop. “Yeah, okay.”

///

“Honestly, I’m fine,” Cas says when Dean hands him a mug of tea. Dean raises his eyebrows, gestures with the mug, and Cas grumbles, takes it in his hands.

A storm caught them as they were making their way back up the beach, the rain pelting down on them, freezing cold like ice pellets. By the time they made it back to their cottage the wind had knocked out the electricity and none of them were able to get service on their phones.

Sam built a fire, used it to heat up the kettle. He poured the rest in a metal bowl so they could wash the saltwater off their faces, and together the three of them huddle on the couch under the blanket.

“Storm like this, the water levels are gonna rise,” Dean says. “We safe here?”

“We should be.” Sam shrugs. The blanket slips off his shoulder. He fixes it and says, “If not we’ll drive further up town.”

“I’m just worried about Baby,” Dean says.

Under the blanket, Cas squeezes his knee.

///

It’s just after midnight when Cas kisses him.

Sam went upstairs to bed at eleven, started snoring twenty minutes ago, the sound traveling down the stairs despite the noise of the storm outside. Still, Dean hesitates, jumping at any sudden creak or rattle of the windows.

Cas murmurs against his jaw, trails his thumb over his mouth and Dean sighs into it, relaxes, closes his eyes and meets Cas’s mouth, sucks on his bottom lip, squeezes his thighs under his hands.

Cas gets him on his back on the couch, rucks up his t-shirt, gets it over his head and nips at his collarbone, leaves marks that can be hidden under clothing. Dean tangles his hands in his hair and messes it up, raises his hips so Cas can pull his jeans off, mouth at his hip and get him ready.

They’ve only done this a few times before, back at the bunker when they were alone. Cas always gentle, hesitant, even when Dean asks him to go harder. They haven’t gone bare, and maybe they should talk about that, but Dean doesn’t say anything when Cas gets himself out of his jeans and slicks himself up. Instead he just lets his knees fall open so Cas can crawl between them and guide himself in.

With a few sharp thrusts Cas roots himself inside and Dean exhales, lets his head drop back onto the arm of the couch. Cas pulls almost all the way out before sinking back in again with a low groan. He’s swollen thick and hard, and the friction, the drag of bare skin makes Dean burn, the rough denim of Cas’s jeans rubbing against the inside of his thighs, scratching an itch he didn’t even know he had.

He grabs at Cas’s hips, lower, cups his ass in his palms and squeezes. Cas grunts and slams into him.

“Shit,” Dean breathes. “What’s gotten into you?”

The couch springs squeak in protest as Cas drives into him, hard and liquid-smooth. Dean’s hyper-aware of it, of any sound that might not be them, might be Sam moving upstairs, waking up. The heat builds until Cas slows his pace, stops, sits up and slips out.

Dean whines, quiet, says, “Cas, please.”

“I want to hear you,” Cas says. He looks like a wreck, face flushed and hair sticking up. He smooths his hands over Dean’s shoulders, his chest, down to his hips, where he grips them tight enough to bruise and drags Dean into his lap.

With one hand, Cas holds his hips down, stops him from grinding shamelessly against him, using the other to steady himself, to rub himself against Dean’s rim, teasing. He dips himself back inside, just the head, and it makes Dean squirm, makes him blush. Cas rubs circles over his hipbones with his thumbs as he guides Dean back onto him.

“God, _Cas_ ,” Dean whimpers and tries to pull him in deeper, but Cas fights him, grabs his wrists and pins them above his head to the arm of the couch, pulls back out so he can sink inside slowly again.

“You’re so warm,” he says, biting the corner of his lip hard enough that Dean jerks against him. Cas soothes it with his tongue, moves lower, and Dean tilts his head, exposes his throat.

Letting go of his wrists, Cas grabs the arm of the couch and finally fucks into him properly. Dean scrapes his hands under Cas’s sweater, fingers digging in, leaving scratch marks on his back. His heart beats so loud he can feel it in his throat. He chokes on the noises he can’t hold back, the ones he has to press into Cas’s neck to silence. Cas’s hips start to stutter, the muscles in his shoulders going tense under Dean’s palms.

“Inside,” he rushes. “I want—come inside me.”

“Yes— _Dean_ ,” Cas says, and he breaks apart. He pushes in and in and in, buries himself deep and lets out a broken sound that rumbles the bones in Dean’s chest, pumping his hips until he’s empty.

Before Dean can catch his breath, Cas pulls out, replaces his cock with two fingers, curls them until he finds what he’s looking for. He rubs at him mercilessly, tongue dipping past Dean’s lips until Dean comes with a sob and his hand on Cas’s shoulder, Cas working him through it until it’s too much and Dean pushes him away. Cas pulls his fingers out, leaving him empty and messy and boneless.

“Holy fuck,” Dean pants.

“Not exactly,” Cas says, and Dean snorts.

His skin’s still buzzing, blood pumping adrenaline underneath the surface, but soon enough his back is going to start hurting. Cas shifts, pulls up his jeans from where they slipped down his thighs. He doesn’t bother reclasping his belt before he gets up on unsteady legs and heads into the kitchen for a washcloth, rinsing it out with water from the kettle over the sink.

Cas cleans him up, his stomach and in between his thighs, his touches feather-light, soft and gentle like all the times before. Back when Dean wasn’t sure if he could handle Cas touching him without shattering.

Cas moves to stand up and Dean catches his wrist before he can.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

Cas looks at him. In the faint glow from the fire, his face is cast in shadow.

“I’m fine,” he says.

Dean lets go of his wrist. Cas moves back to the sink to wash the cloth out and Dean gathers up his track pants off the floor.

###  **Two**

They find him in a dilapidated boathouse south from the main harbor. It smells like the ocean, like rotting wood and fish. Like dry blood and piss and shit and the vomit down the front of his shirt. He’s shaking from the cold, his clothes soaked with sweat and rain. Over the sound of crashing waves he can hear the humming, the high-pitched whistling that makes his bones creak, shakes his heart in its cage.

At first they’re just shadows against a backdrop of dark grey sky. Standing in the doorway, three of them. They’re tall and heavy, faces dark. They creep into the boathouse on quiet footsteps, boots and cuffs of their pants wet and sandy.

“I can hear it,” he hears himself say. He reaches out towards them and he says, “I can hear it calling.”

They stop in front of him. One of them clicks on their flashlight, shines it in his face. He blinks, recoils against the wall, feels rope against the back of his neck. Their voices are muffled under the crash of waves, under the deep hum that reverberates up from the water.

Two pairs of hands grab onto his arms, lift him up from the floor. A hand on his left is missing a finger. He doesn’t fight them, lets them drag him out of the boathouse and down along the rickety pier, the wood creaking under them. The third is directing them where to go. There’s something hanging off his belt.

“Can’t you hear it?” he asks them. He turns to one, then to the other. They don’t look at him. He asks, “Can’t you hear it singing?”

“Listen—maybe we should bring him back,” a voice says.

“We’re not bringing him back,” says another. “We agreed.”

They stop at the edge of the pier. Water sprays up at them, makes ripples in the puddles on the wood. The wind is cold against his face, bitter with salt. The sun is starting to rise in the distance, a gradient of greys rising up from the water.

The hands hold him still, steady him as he wobbles on his feet. Behind him the third moves, a mere presence lingering. There’s the clink of metal on metal, the swish of fabric. One of them nods to the one behind him. The hands tighten their grip.

“It’s so beautiful,” he says.

An arm grabs him around the neck, pulls him back into a solid body. It cuts off his air, chokes him. He jumps, panicked, but can’t move.

“You shoulda stayed drowned, you bastard,” a voice says in his ear.

Something cold and sharp presses against his throat. It digs into his skin, deep, swipes from one side of his neck to the other. Something warm spills out of him, sweet and tangy and his breath catches, his mouth fills with copper. Everything goes cold, numb. There’s cotton in his ears. He can still hear the singing.

The water hits him hard. It’s warm and smooth and soft like a blanket. He feels weightless. The water is black under the surface, deep. It fills his mouth, his nose, gets in his eyes and his ears. He can’t breathe. The singing is louder in the dark.

“Rosie,” he tries to say. The words bubble out of his mouth.

He says, “Rosie, you silly woman, you let the fire die again.”

She keeps singing, and he smiles.

###  **Three**

Dean chokes and bolts upright, grabbing at his throat. His tongue tastes like saltwater and the copper tang of blood. He inhales deep, gasping, and lets his hands drop from his neck. His next breath comes easy, and the one after that even easier. Dean swallows, glances around the loft.

Sam’s passed out in the bed next to his, facing the opposite wall. It’s still mostly dark out, the sun a mere blip on the horizon as it starts to claw its way into the sky, struggling to be seen through the clouds, the fog. The waves crash outside. Rain pelts against the windows.

Quietly, Dean kicks off the blanket and gets out of bed. His muscles are sore, and the cottage is cold and damp. It smells warm like firewood smoke, like the ocean, and it’s almost enough to mask the scent of Cas’s spice that clings to his skin, that always makes him jump when Sam gets too close.

Dean shuffles down the stairs, rubs at an eye with the heel of his hand. At the bottom he slips on something cold and wet, has to grab onto the railing to stop from falling on his ass. Dean rights himself with a frown. There’s water all over the floor, leaking in from the back door.

The back door that’s open.

Something cold sinks into Dean’s chest.

He walks into the middle of the room, towards the couch. The pile of quilts is still there, the pillows, but Cas is gone, barely an imprint left on the cushions. The bathroom door is open, revealing nothing but an empty shower and a toilet with the seat still up. Baby’s still parked out front, her frame dripping with rain water.

“Cas, you here?” Dean tries. The back door squeaks on its hinges. Dean swears under his breath and grabs his boots, his coat off the hanger by the front door. He doesn’t bother tying his laces, just turns his collar up and walks outside through the back.

It’s freezing outside. There’s a storm brewing off the coast, the fog rolling over the water quick and dark. The rain feels like ice, makes it hard for him to see. Carefully, Dean makes his way off the back porch, towards the beach. His boots slosh in the wet grass.

“Cas?” he calls out. His voice is barely audible above the wind. “Dammit, I hate when you do this.”

He tries to find the easiest path to the beach, his boots slipping on wet grass and mud. As he comes to the top of the slope he sees a figure standing at the water’s edge and feels relief flood him. He makes his way down, losing his balance at the end stumbling forward. Cas doesn’t move as he approaches.

“Cas!” Dean shouts at him over the crashing waves. “What the hell’s going on, man?”

Cas doesn’t look at him, doesn’t even to seem to register that he’s there. His t-shirt clings to his chest, his jeans to his legs, completely soaked. Rain drips down his cheeks, off his chin.

“She’s awake,” he says.

Dean stares at him. “The fuck does that mean?”

Cas takes a step forward, towards the water. Dean reaches out and grabs him, yanks him back. The bottoms of his jeans are covered in dark sand. For a minute it almost looks like blood. He’s not wearing any shoes.

Dean’s heart feels lodged in his throat. He shakes Cas’s shoulder and Cas clenches his eyes closed, makes a pained noise in his throat, wavers slightly on the spot. Dean holds him steady and when Cas opens his eyes again they’re clear, focused, wide with panic. He inhales, sharp, grabs at the front of Dean’s shirt, nearly pulls him off balance and into the sand.

“Hey hey hey, it’s okay,” Dean says. “I got you, Cas. You’re fine.”

“Dean,” Cas says. “I can hear it.”

“Hear what?” Dean asks. Cas looks out towards the water and Dean says, “Hear what, Cas?”

“The creature,” Cas says. “She’s awake.”

///

The power still isn’t back by the time Sam wakes up and the sky outside has finally brightened.

Dean hangs Cas’s clothes over the wood burning stove. They leave puddles on the floor. Cas sits curled into himself on the couch, blanket over his shoulders, dressed in his pyjamas and holding a mug of tea. He looks frighteningly pale, with bags under his eyes. The dark marks on his neck stand out, bruises and teeth marks.

Sam, thankfully, doesn’t comment. Doesn’t point them out. Doesn’t give Dean a knowing look, even though Dean’s pretty damn sure he sees them and knows exactly what they are and who they’re from.

“There’s something in the water,” Cas says.

“Like what?” Sam asks.

Cas shakes his head. “I’m not sure,  I can’t remember. But I could—I can hear it. Feel it. It’s—it’s singing.”

Dean  wipes nervously at his mouth with one hand, wincing when he brushes against the cut on his lip, his fingers scratching at the knee of his jeans with his other.

“I want to go to the beach,” Cas says.

“Hell no,” Dean says.

“Dean—”

“No way, Cas,” Dean says. “There’s something bad going on down there.”

Cas glares at him. “I can handle it, Dean.”

“It’s not that—”

“What, then?” Cas asks. “You don’t trust me?”

“Something’s screwing with you,” Dean says. “And whatever it is, it’s not good.”

“Dean’s right, Cas,” Sam says. “I think you should stay here and let us go.”

“What?” Dean says. “No, I’m not going down there either.”

“Dean, this is a case. We have to investigate,” Sam says.

Dean shakes his head. His fingers feel numb, his throat tight. He wants to pack up the car and drive in the opposite direction, put the ocean in the rearview and never look back.

Except Sam’s right, this is a case, and something’s got its claws in Cas. It probably won’t let go, no matter how far or fast they drive.

“Fine,” Dean says.

///

Sam is quiet in the passenger seat as they drive towards the blocked off patch of beach, Baby’s wipers swishing steadily through the rain. The road is flooded out in spots, streams of water trickling across the concrete. Dean mutters under his breath as he drives through puddles that lap at the undercarriage.

There are police cars lined up along the side of the road when they turn the bend. Two officers stand under umbrellas, and another turns her head as Dean slows the Impala.

“Shit,” he says.

Sam tosses his badge into his lap and Dean grabs it as he turns off the engine. They get out of the car and make their way towards the nearest officer, flashing their badges at her.

“Agents Lifeson and Peart,” Dean says.

“Detective Sharma,” she says. She’s young, but she stands with her shoulders back, head high. She’s got her hair tied up in a bun and the cool air makes her dark cheeks look rosy, but she could probably drop Dean on his ass in two seconds flat if he tried to cross her.

“What’s going on?” he asks.

“Jack Hart’s body washed up last night,” Sharma says.

Dean’s insides go numb.

“What?” Sam asks. “He’s dead?”

Sharma turns to him, nods, says, “Throat was cut.”

Dean excuses himself, grabs his phone out of his pocket. There’s still no signal, and his battery is almost dead. Dean tries to control his breathing, tries to ignore the way his fingers tingle. He closes his eyes and leans with a hand against Baby’s roof.

“Hey,” Sam says behind him. He drops a hand to Dean’s shoulder and comes to stand next to him. “What’s up?”

“I dreamt about this,” Dean says.

Sam stares at him. “What?”

“Last night,” Dean says. “I—I had a dream that I was—I was Jack Hart, and these three guys found me and they cut my throat and threw me into the water. I woke up and I couldn’t breathe, I felt like I was drowning.”

“Sharma says they’re thinking suicide,” Sam says, slow.

Dean shakes his head. “He was killed, Sam.”

“So—what. It was a vision?” Sam asks.

“I have no idea,” Dean says.

“Well, did you see the three guys?” Sam asks. “The ones who killed him, in your dream, or whatever?”

“No,” Dean says. “It was dark and—and, I dunno. Blurry, or something. Foggy.”

His head’s starting to hurt. Rain water is dripping down the back of his collar, cold and unpleasant. Sam scrubs at his chin with a palm, glances back towards where the officers are standing, looking out towards the water.

He’s got a smudge of coal on his fingernail.

Dean inhales, an image flashing in his mind. He reaches out, grabs onto Sam’s coat so he turns back to him, glances down at Dean’s hands and looks back up at him with a frown.

“One of the guys,” Dean says. “He was missing a finger.”

“What?” Sam asks.

Dean shakes his arm and snaps, “In my dream!”

“So?” Sam asks.

“So, I’ve seen him before,” Dean says. “He’s one of the assholes I interviewed at the harbor.”

///

The power is still running in town, but Neptune’s Cellar is musty dark and damp anyway. Despite the smoking laws, and there’s a heavy cloud of it hanging over the bar.

The mat at the door is soaked with rain water, squishing under their boots when they walk in. A hazy light manages to pierce through the old windows despite the deep scratches and grit. No one seems to notice them as they walk to the bar, Sam with his hands in his pockets, Dean keeping his head up.

There’s music playing overhead, but it’s quiet, muffled. Dean feels water in his ear.

He orders two beers and he and Sam sit down on either side of a man nursing a whiskey, his hand wrapped around the glass. He only has four fingers.

“Hey there, Willie,” Dean says.

Willie grunts, his eyes locked on the television behind the bar. He lifts his glass to his mouth and takes a deep drink, practically slams the glass back down on the bartop and waves the bartender over to refill it.

“You look tired,” Dean says. “Rough night?”

Willie turns to look at him. His face is blank, eyes unfocused.

He says, “Slept like a baby.”

“Oh yeah?” Dean says. “Storm didn’t keep you up?”

“Used to storms,” Willie says, turning back to the television.

Dean nods, glances back at Sam.

“So we heard about your old fishing buddy,” he continues, leaning in on his elbow so he can look Willie in the face. “Jack Hart? Washed up on the beach last night with his throat cut.”

Willie drinks from his glass.

“Police are saying suicide,” Dean says.

Willie inhales, slow, steady.

“You, uh. Talk to him at all recently, Willie?” Dean asks.

Willie stares at the television. His knuckles are pale around his glass.

He says, “Nope.”

“You think he was the sort of guy to take his own life?” Dean asks.

“Can’t say I knew him that well,” Willie says, slow.

“What about all that stuff he was saying, about monsters in the water?” Dean asks. “What do you make of that?”

Willie’s glass squeaks under his palm, barely audible over the music, the muffled noise in Dean’s ear. Willie still doesn’t look at him, his mouth twitching in the corner.

“Load of horseshit,” he says.

“So you didn’t believe him?” Dean asks.

Willie takes another drink. Again he says, “Nope.”

Dean nods to Sam. He shifts on the bar stool, reaches into his back pocket.

“Too bad,” he says.

He pulls out his wallet and slaps money on the bar, enough to pay for both his and Sam’s drink and Willie’s glass of whiskey. Willie doesn’t move when Dean gets up and waves at Sam to follow. Sam does wordlessly, his boots heavy on the wood floor.

Outside, Sam says, “Well?”

“Something’s going on,” Dean says. He digs a pinky into his ear, says, “He’s got that weird look on his face that Cas got.”

Sam watches him. “You think he’s affected?”

“I dunno,” Dean says, still digging.

Sam makes a face and whacks at his arm. “Don’t do that.”

“My ear’s ringing,” Dean says. “I think I got water in it.”

///

There’s a fire going and the power is back on when they get back, which is a relief.

Except Cas is standing in front of the stove with his back turned to the door, completely naked and dripping wet, which isn’t.

The marks on his back shine red against his sickly pale skin. They look dark and angry, deeper than Dean thought possible with blunt fingernails. The whole cottage smells of fish, and it’s not until Dean’s coming to stand next to Cas that he realizes his hands and arms are streaked with blood, his feet and legs covered in sand.

“What the hell did you do?” he asks.

Cas blinks at him, slow.

“I—” he tries, his voice shaking. “I don’t know.”

He’s shivering. The blood is still wet, caked under his fingernails. Dean covers him in a quilt, pulls it closed over his chest so he’s covered. Sam sniffs and heads into the kitchen, over to the sink. He gags and holds his arm up to his nose.

“There’s at least a dozen dead fish in here,” he says.

Dean looks at Cas, his hand firm on his chest.

“Did you do that?” he asks.

“They’ll be hungry,” Cas says. “When they wake. If I feed them, maybe—I have to feed them.”

Sam looks at him, eyes wide, nervous. Dean swallows.

“Okay,” he says. He turns Cas so he’s facing him, holds onto his arm and says, “Listen, bud. I’m gonna get you in the shower, okay? Gonna get you cleaned up. Get this—get this blood off you.”

“Yes,” Cas says, still slow, dazed, slurring his words. He smiles at him and says, “I like when we shower together, Dean.”

Behind them, Sam says, “I’ll, uh. I’ll get rid of the fish.”

Dean doesn’t turn to look at him, just hears him open cupboard doors and move cleaning products around until he finds a bucket and a pair of rubber gloves. Gently, Dean nudges Cas towards the bathroom, leads him with a hand on his shoulder and tries to keep his breathing steady.

///

He turns the shower on hot and guides Cas inside, under the spray. Dean pulls off his clothes methodically and slips in behind him, tilts the showerhead so Cas is covered. Eventually Cas stops shivering, gets a little color back in his skin, his face. Dean washes the blood off his hands with soap, takes extra care with his fingernails. Cas leans against his front, solid and heavy, his stubble scratching Dean’s shoulder.

“I miss your stupid soap,” Dean tells him. Blood and sand spirals down the drain, pale red. Dean rubs the bar under Cas’s arms, along his sides, down his back and says, “It smells ten times better than this crap.”

“I’m sorry,” Cas whispers.

Dean looks up at him.

“I think I just told Sam about us,” Cas says.

Dean licks his lips. Goes back to washing Cas off, careful of the marks on his back.

Cas says, “I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s fine,” Dean says.

“It’s not,” Cas says.

He touches the mark on Dean’s lip with his thumb. Dean closes his eyes.

“I hurt you,” Cas says. His breath comes out quick, panicked, and he says, “Dean—I didn’t—”

“Hey,” Dean says. He sets the soap back on the ledge and Cas’s hand falls to his chest, palm against his heart. Dean cups Cas’s face in his hands, tilts his head so Cas looks up at him. Dean says, “Sex isn’t always, y’know. Gentle and tender embraces. Fabio crap.”

Cas doesn’t say anything.

“Doesn’t mean it wasn’t good,” Dean says.

“I couldn’t get close enough,” Cas says. “I wanted—I needed to get closer.”

“Yeah,” Dean says. He rubs Cas’s cheek and says, “That’s a, uh—pretty human feeling.”

Cas shakes his head. “No.”

Dean blinks at him.

“I mean, yes. It is. I know that. I understand that. Even when I was an angel, I wanted that. With you. I wanted to be closer to you. Physically. Emotionally,” Cas says. “But this was something else. Something different. I couldn’t—I didn’t feel in control.”

Dean swallows. That cold feeling in his chest is back, worming its way down his torso, into his hands, his bones. Cas sighs and shakes his head. Dean ducks down, presses a kiss to his jaw, soft, chaste.

The ringing in his ear grows louder.

###  **Four**

He spends the next afternoon with the hair on the back of his neck standing up. As he walks from the car to the laundromat he keeps checking over his shoulder, the weight of someone watching him heavy on his back. Each time he looks back he finds nothing. No shape in the corner of his eye, no figure lurking in the shadows.

“You okay?” Sam asks, holding open the door for him. “You’re twitchier than normal.”

“Yeah,” Dean says. “Just—I dunno. Probably had too much coffee.”

Sam sets up his laptop as their clothes slosh around in the washing machines. Cas reads one of the home and garden magazines left abandoned on the small table in the corner. Dean scratches at the back of his neck and fidgets quietly for ten minutes before he gets out of his seat.

“I’m gonna grab some food,” he says.

“I need more pork rinds,” Cas says, not looking up from his magazine.

The streets are wet and quiet, the cold and the wind keeping the locals at home. Some of the boats are gone from the harbor, their bells ringing out through the fog. There’s a thin layer of mist falling, and Dean turns the collar of his coat up to try and keep warm.

There’s a small grocer about a block away on a corner. Dean cuts through a back alley to save on time, scaring a pigeon away from a garbage bag that’s been ripped apart by something bigger, its insides strewn across the pavement.

The eyes burning on his neck are back. Dean stops to pretend to tie his boot, glancing around the alley with his head ducked down. Aside from the pigeon eyeing him warily from the eaves of the building in front of him, there’s no one. He tucks his hands into his pockets and keeps walking, ears open for any little noise. He makes it to the store without incident.

It’s probably just lack of sleep. This case has settled over him like a wet blanket, cold and heavy. It’s been a while since a hunt has put him off like this. He doesn’t miss the feeling.

He picks up a basket by the door and wanders down the aisles, grabbing a few cans of soup off the shelf, some soda crackers, a bag of pasta. Things that won’t go bad if they lose power again. He grabs a bag of pork rinds for Cas and Vegetable Thins for Sam. There’s no one else in the store but him and the cashier restocking the gum display, but still the itch scratches at his neck.

The cashier barely looks up as she rings him through. Dean grabs a pack of M&Ms for himself and a bottle of Tylenol. He thumbs through a pamphlet for an auction at the local museum before putting it back. He pays with cash and offers the girl a smile that she doesn’t return.

The itch finally catches up to him in the back alley. He turns a corner and suddenly he’s not alone, nearly barrelling into the chest of another man. Dean tenses, his hand moving to the back of his jeans for his gun before he stops.

“Willie?” he asks.

Willie’s face is half-hidden by his hat. Shoulders hunched over and hands wringing, he looks around him as though something is after him. He shakes his head, his hands, and when he looks up his eyes are wide, frightened.

“He made me,” Willie says. “I didn’t want to. I didn’t—he made me do it.”

“Hey, easy.” Dean holds his hand out, trying to calm him. “Who made you do what?”

“I told him it was a bad idea,” Willie says. “I told him. He didn’t listen.”

Dean shifts his groceries. “I’m gonna take you somewhere quiet and we can talk, okay?”

Willie shakes his head again. He looks at him and says, “I didn’t want to kill him. You have to believe me.”

///

He shoots Sam a text on the way to Neptune’s Cellar, Willie shivering in the Impala the whole way. He leads him inside and finds a quiet booth in the corner, ordering two beers at the bar and sliding one across the table to Willie, who gulps nearly half of it in one go.

“What happened?” Dean asks.

Willie wipes his mouth on his sleeve, shakes his head again.

“I can’t sleep,” he says. “I can’t sleep anymore. I keep seeing him, his face. And I hear it. That sound.”

“Willie,” Dean says. “In order for me to help you, I need you to help me. You get me?”

A few minutes later, Cas finds them, sliding into the booth next to Dean without a word. Sam follows close behind, tucking his hair behind his ear as he sits down next to Willie, glancing at Dean curiously but keeping quiet. Willie doesn’t seem to notice either of them.

“Jack,” he says. “It wasn’t my idea. Earl—he said it was the only way.”

“So you killed him,” Dean says.

“I didn’t want to,” Willie says. “Jack’s only lived here a few years. He didn’t know—he couldn’t have. No one talks about it. We’re not supposed to. I know he killed those people, but what we did, that wasn’t the way.”

Cas frowns. “No one talks about what?”

Willie looks up, finally noticing him.

“Those things,” he says. “Those things in the water.”

“What things?” Sam asks, sitting up straighter. “What’s out there?”

Willie doesn’t look away from Cas, eyes still wide, wild. Next to Dean, Cas tenses, and Dean presses closer to his side.

“The thing that crashed Jack’s boat. Jack saw it. Then he heard it. That noise,” Willie says. “When you hear it, that’s when you know it’s too late. It’s got you and it’s only a matter of time.”

Dean looks at Sam, who glances at Cas. Willie shakes his head, downs the rest of his beer.

“That noise,” he says again. “If you knew what was good for you, you’d get the hell out of town and never look back. Forget everything, like it was just a bad dream. Just forget it.”

“We can’t do that, Willie,” Dean says.

Willie looks at him. Stares. Dean swallows down the sick feeling in his stomach.

“Then I can’t help you,” Willie says.

///

Dean makes them soup from a can for dinner. Cas barely eats any of it.

He was quiet on the drive back to the cottage. Contemplative. Willie got up and left after their conversation at the bar, wandered off down towards the pier as they went back to the laundromat to get their clothes. No one says anything as they eat, even though they’re probably all thinking the same thing.

“I think I’m going to go to bed,” Cas says after a few hours of silence. They’re in the living room researching sea creatures. Cas has spent the majority of the time staring out the back window, towards the ocean.

Dean pushes away from the table, gets out of his chair and comes to stand in front of him, lowering his voice. “Why don’t you take the bed tonight?”

“The couch is fine.”

“No, really. After the other night—” Dean shakes his head. “Please. Just. Take the bed.”

Cas sighs. “If you insist.”

Dean offers him a small smile. “I do.”

Cas’s mouth quirks in the corner. He’s close enough that Dean can feel his heat, smell the synthetic-clean smell of the cottage soap on his skin. He could bend down and kiss Cas goodnight without having to step forward.

Instead, Cas says, “Good night, Sam.”

“Night, Cas,” Sam says from the table. “Sleep well.”

Dean turns back to the table as Cas climbs the stairs and heads into the loft. He’s got a notebook waiting with half a page of scribbled notes about giant squids and jellyfish and megladon. Sam’s laptop is open to an old news article about a ship that went down an hour outside the harbor in the late ‘60’s.

“He’s gonna be fine,” Sam says.

“Yeah,” Dean says. He doodles a shark in the margin of his notebook.

“I mean it, Dean,” Sam says. “It’s Cas. He’s always fine, in the end.”

Cas isn’t an angel anymore. One of these days their luck is going to run out, and no matter how many times they say they’re fine, that it’s going to be fine, that doesn’t make it true. Dean’s been waiting for the other shoe to drop. Maybe this is it, the laces have been cut and it’s coming down to crash on his head, heavy with sand and seawater.

“Can we just keep researching?” he asks.

Sam looks at him for a long moment.

“Yeah,” he says. “Sure.”

###  **Five**

It’s on the news the next morning.

Sam’s already finished his bowl of oatmeal and Dean’s just about done his plate of eggs. The television’s been mumbling quietly in the background about the off-season storms and the irregular fog with recurring reminders about the dangers of boating in it. Dean’s not really paying attention to it until the newscaster’s tone changes into something darker as she announces two men have been found dead on the pier and the killer is believed to still be in the area.

“The suspect has been identified as William Hill,” the newscaster  says. “The names of the victims have not yet been released. Anyone with information is urged to contact—”

Dean’s stomach sinks. Sam stops chewing and gets out of his chair to turn the volume up.

“Police are in the area and urge residents to stay indoors and away from entrances and windows,” the newscaster says. The screen above her flashes an image of the pier, where there are several cops standing by a line of police tape. The image flashes again to a team of police hurrying down the street. Underneath the text reads: _TWO MEN FOUND DEAD, POLICE IN PURSUIT OF KILLER._

“Hang on,” Sam says, pointing to the television. “Isn’t that—”

“Yeah,” Dean says, leaning closer. On the screen, detective Sharma hurries behind a building, followed by the rest of the team. The newscaster is now joined by another anchor who is talking about tourists trying to come to the coast to catch a glimpse of the weird red balls that have washed up on shore.

From behind them, Cas says, “He heard it.”

Dean jumps, startled. He turns in his chair to find Cas staring at the television screen, his hair unkempt, bags under his eyes, shoulders sunk. Cas sways slightly on spot, doesn’t look away from the screen.

Slowly, he says, “The noise. He heard it.”

On the television, the woman says, “We’ve just received word that the suspect has been confronted and the pursuit has ended with a weapons discharge—”

Dean closes his eyes. Exhales. Behind him, Cas shuffles out of the room.

///

He showers and shaves, irons their shirts in the kitchen as Sam cleans off their shoes and Cas wolfs down two bowls of oatmeal and a plate of toast. Once they’re dressed and ready to go they pile into the Impala and drive into town.

They split up, Sam taking the gaggle of police gathered around the pier as Dean and Cas make their way to the scene where Willie was found. It’s raining again, the pavement slippery with it, and the air bites at their skin. Sharma is hanging outside the alley talking into her radio when they walk up to her.

“You suits really like sticking your nose in it, huh?” she asks.

“We just have a few questions,” Dean says.

“He killed two men with a knife this morning. Stabbed them both. Another fisherman saw it. Then he took off,” Sharma says. “Not much else I can give you.”

“Did he say anything?” Cas asks.

“Anything… like what?” Sharma presses.

“Out of the ordinary,” Cas says.

Sharma sighs. “He was babbling. I could barely make it out. Something about, ‘they had no right.’ And, ‘they’re hungry.’ I have no idea.”

Dean looks at Cas, who frowns.

“Tell you what,” Sharma says. “Any man that kills people like that, they’re bound to be a bit messed up.”

“What about Jack Hart?” Dean asks. “Same thing happened with him. You don’t find that strange?”

Sharma licks her lips, looks away from him, down towards the pier.

“Jack Hart committed himself,” she says. “He was a drunk, and a loner. He was weird the day he showed up in town and he was weird the day he washed up on shore.”

“What about the things in the water?” Cas asks.

Dean looks at him but Cas ignores him, staring Sharma down. Sharma looks at Dean, then back at Cas, then barks out a laugh.

“You’re serious?” she asks. When Cas doesn’t reply she shakes her head. “Old sailor tales. Things in the water, you know. Like mermaids and sirens. Giant sea snakes. All that crap. It’s not real. It’s just a story sailors made up when they were bored.”

“What story?” Cas asks.

Sharma studies him for a moment. Then she turns to face him head-on.

“It’s just an old wive's tale. I promise you, every little town on the coast has one. Ours is about the creatures that sleep on the bottom of the ocean,” she says. “Every so often they wake up. Cause weird weather, strange fish migration, low tides, beach a few whales, whatever. Just stories to scare the sailors.”

“You have been getting weird weather,” Cas says.

“Global warming.” Sharma shrugs.

“And the stuff on the beach?” Dean asks. “That’s, what. Terrorists?”

Sharma glares at him. “It’s the ocean. There’s all sorts of weird crap down there. Sometimes it washes up. Pieces of old ships, seats from airplane crashes, all kinds of junk.”

“So you don’t think there’s anything going on here?” Dean asks.

“What, like sea monsters?” Sharma asks. “No, agent. I think Jack Hart was a crazy old drunk and someone out there thought they could milk his cock-and-bull story for a few extra bucks. What this is—these people killing other people? That I don’t know, but I am in the middle of the investigation, so if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to get back to it.”

She pushes past them, wanders off to talk to one of the deputies. Cas watches her go, still frowning. Dean’s phone buzzes in his pocket and he pulls it out, finds a message from Sam asking them to meet him at the bar. He reaches out and touches Cas’s arm, startling him back into the present, and together they head back to the car.

///

Sam has beers waiting for them when they arrive.

“I ordered a plate of nachos,” Sam says as they sit down.

“That’s cuz you’re a good brother,” Dean says. Sam rolls his eyes. The radio fades in and out overhead, buzzing into static every few minutes between verses of classic rock songs.

“So,” Sam says. “Get this. The two guys Willie killed? His fishing buddies. The ones you interviewed when we first got here.”

“Earl and Duncan,” Dean says. “Willie said Earl made them kill Jack.”

“So it was revenge,” Cas says. He’s got beer foam on his upper lip. Dean gestures to it and Cas wipes it off with his hand.

“Maybe.” Sam shrugs. “He seemed pretty pissed at Earl yesterday.”

“Yeah, but pissed enough to kill?” Dean asks. “I mean, the guy was a douchebag, but I kinda think he was telling the truth when he said he didn’t want to kill Jack. Why would he go and kill someone else?”

Sam fidgets uncomfortably, looks at Cas. “Well. He was hearing things, wasn’t he?”

Cas doesn’t seemed as bothered. “That’s what I gathered, yes.”

“What did you guys find out?” Sam asks. The waitress comes by with their basket of nachos and three plates. They stop their conversation as she makes sure they have everything they need before leaving. The nachos sizzle, the cheese bubbling from the heat, pieces of olives and onions and tomatoes dripping off into the basket.

Dean’s stomach rolls.

“The detective’s lying,” Cas says.

Sam tucks into the nachos, pulls a handful onto his plate. “About what?”

“She said something about—about a creature that, uh. Sleeps at the bottom of the ocean,” Dean says. “Said it was just an old sailor tale.”

Cas nods, relays what Sharma told them as he dips his nachos into the small bowl of sour cream. A tomato falls off and stains the sour cream red. Dean presses himself further into the corner of the booth. Sam watches him.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Nothing,” Dean says. The radio goes high-pitched for a moment before fizzing back into the verse of “Abracadabra.” Dean winces. “I just—feel kinda dizzy, is all.”

Sam’s face drops. “Dean.”

Cas looks at him, blinks, puts his food down.

“What?” Dean asks. His hearing has gone muffled again, his vision a bit dark at the edges. Then he feels it, the warm itch on his upper lip. Dean reaches up to rub at it and his finger comes away bloody.

///

“I’m fine, dammit,” Dean says for the umpteenth time.

They’re back at the cottage, and Cas has wrapped him up in a blanket and Sam keeps trying to shove a cup of hot lemon water under his nose. Dean pushes both away and gets off the couch. His head starts to spin and he sits down again with a defeated huff.

They left the bar in a hurry. Sam managed to save most of the nachos in a styrofoam take-out container. They sit abandoned on the counter in the kitchen. Dean eyes them. They’re probably still warm. His stomach rumbles.

“I just need to eat something,” he says.

“You were gagging on the way back to the car,” Sam says. “Now you’re hungry?”

“It was probably just the cigarette smoke,” Dean says. “This is why they banned them indoors in the first place. Makes it hard to eat.”

“Pretty sure it was cancer, but okay,” Sam says.

Cas glances over his shoulder to the nachos. Dean perks up.

“Do you want those?” Cas asks.

Dean doesn’t even have to answer, Cas is already making his way back to the kitchen to grab them. He hands them over to Dean, who rips into the package and starts wolfing them down.

Sam grimaces. He looks at Cas and asks, “How do you feel?”

Cas sits down on the arm of the couch, shrugs his shoulders.

“I’m all right,” he says.

Dean burps around a mouthful of food. “You didn’t eat the other night.”

“I wasn’t hungry,” Cas says.

“You were this morning. S’weird,” Dean says. He shoves another nacho in his mouth.

Cas looks at Sam. “How do you feel?”

“I feel fine,” Sam says. “No weird appetite, no dizzy spells, no nosebleeds.”

“You’re not hearing anything?” Cas asks.

Sam hesitates, looks over at Dean, then shakes his head. “Aside from Dean’s scarfing noises, nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Screw off,” Dean says.

“I want to go back to the beach,” Cas says. Dean opens his mouth and Cas holds up his hand. “And before you say anything, yes, I’m aware of how you feel about it. But something is bothering me. I know I’ve seen these things before. I think I can figure out what they are.”

Dean shakes his head, dusts crumbs off his hands. “You’re not going alone. Last time you were out there you went all freaky and killed a bunch of fish.”

“I’ll be fine, Dean,” Cas says. “You need to trust me.”

“Cas—I do. You know that,” Dean says. “It’s just. We’ve been down this road before, man. Every time something comes along and messes you up, bad shit always happens. Someone—hell, both of us—we always get hurt.”

Sam looks between the two of them

“All right,” Cas says, quiet.

“I’m gonna get a cab back into town,” Sam says. “There’s something I wanna check out.”

“Sure you’re not just avoiding us?” Dean asks.

Sam rolls his eyes and pulls out his phone.

///

There’s no signs of police save for the old caution tape staked into the ground and a new sign posted warning people to keep off the beach due to dangerous water levels. Dean parks the car and together he and Cas make their way down the grassy slope, boots sliding on the wet ground. A few gulls circle overhead, cawing to each other and lazily riding the air currents.

It’s still light enough that they don’t need flashlights, but the sun is just starting to set behind the wall of grey clouds. As they round the bend they’re greeted by the at least a dozen more red balls than there were before, all lining the sand along the water.

Before, when Dean felt nothing except mildly sick to his stomach due to the smell, he now feels an odd buzz. Something’s pulsating like the hum of overhead wires just under the surface of his skin. It feels like a pump of adrenaline, the base of his spine tingling and his muscles going tense. The waves sound muffled in his ears.

Cas leads him down the beach, quick and sure-footed, towards the first ball. Dean steps in his bootprints, careful not to slip and land in the muck. There’s a streak of it running up the back of Cas’s legs.

“Here,” Cas says, stopping in front of the first ball. The lines in its surface have turned white, started to flake off like candy coating off an apple. The nicks and grooves are deeper, reaching inward towards the black thing inside.

There’s a ringing in his ears. Quiet, almost too low to hear. Dean digs at it with a pinky. The muffled sound continues, slow and rhythmic.

Cas pulls his angel blade out from the back of his jeans. Dean watches as he reaches up, and in one quick, smooth arc, stabs it into the surface of the ball. The blade jams and Cas stumbles with the force of it.

“Careful,” Dean says.

Cas tries to wiggle the blade but nothing happens. He tries to push down on it, cut into the ball, but the blade stays firmly in place. He grabs the handle and pulls back, slipping on the rocks. Dean holds his hands out, ready to steady him, catch him if he falls, and Cas shoves a boot up against the ball, uses it for leverage to yank his blade out.

He stares down at his blade in disbelief.

“I thought that’d work,” he says.

“I’ve tried that already.”

Dean swings around. Detective Sharma hops off a rock and picks her way over to them.

“Broke my knife clean in half,” she says. She steps in between them and points to a spot on the surface of the ball, her fingers hovering over it. “Put bullets here and here. They sunk about three inches into the surface before stopping. They’ve dissolved by now.”

Cas watches her. “You’ve touched it?”

She looks at him. “Not with my bare hands, no. Why, have you?”

Cas looks at Dean, opens his mouth, doesn’t say anything.

“Ah.” Sharma nods once.

“Old sailor’s tale, huh?” Dean says.

“Right.” Sharma smiles at him. “And you’re FBI.”

Dean huffs out a laugh. Sharma rounds the side of the ball and keeps heading down the beach. Dean and Cas follow.

“I can’t say I’m surprised you’re here,” she says. “It was only a matter of time before someone found out.”

There’s a large patch of balls in the middle, at least five all gathered together, their humming making Dean feel off-balance. The ringing in his ears grows a bit louder, the waves a bit more muffled. He can feel Cas’s heat radiating off of him. Sharma’s hair blows in the wind when she turns to face them. She nods to Cas’s blade in his hands.

“What kind of knife is that?” she asks.

Cas looks at Dean, who nods.

“Angel blade,” Cas says. “It’s mine.”

“Can I see it?” she asks. Cas hesitates then hands it over to her.

“It’s heavy,” she says. “Heavier than it looks.”

“It kills most things,” Cas says.

“But not these,” Sharma says, handing it back. Cas tucks it away and shakes his head.

“You seem okay with this,” Dean says.

“Before, I did search and rescue in the forests. You see things out there you can’t explain,” she says. “I’ve learned to keep an open mind.”

“That sailor’s tale of yours,” Dean says. “Any truth to it?”

Sharma looks out towards the water, stands quietly for a moment.

“As far as I can tell, yes.”

“As far as you can tell?” Dean asks.

“This has never happened in my lifetime,” Sharma says. “But the signs—the locals call it The Nesting. Well, the ones who’ve had a bit too much to drink and start flapping their mouths, anyway.”

Dean leans closer to Cas and says, “I told you they were caviars.”

“As far as I know no one’s ever actually seen the creatures themselves,” Sharma continues. “Just their eggs.”

“Except Jack Hart,” Cas says.

Sharma nods. “Except Jack Hart.”

“Well, we can’t exactly ask him,” Dean says.

“Ask him what?” Sharma asks.

“What they look like,” Dean says. “Where he was when he saw them.”

“Considering their eggs are roughly the size of a clydesdale, I’m going to go with ‘big’,” Sharma says. “As for coordinates, Jack radioed in his location when his boat hit something. I should be able to get it from the coastguard. He’s a friend of mine.”

“That’s a start,” Dean says.

“What do you plan to do?” Sharma asks.

“Kill it,” Dean says.

Sharma laughs. “No one’s ever seen one and you plan to kill it?”

Cas touches Dean’s wrist. The contact makes Dean’s skin burn. “Maybe we should talk about this first.”

“Cas—it’s a monster,” Dean says. “Monsters have to be stopped. That’s, like, Hunting 101.”

Cas looks at him but doesn’t say anything. He lets go of his wrist.

“I’ll dig up what I can,” Sharma says, tucking her hands back into her pockets. She looks at Dean and says, “Don’t do anything stupid just yet.”

///

The buzzing only gets worse when they leave the beach. Sharma pulls out from behind a bank in an old Buick, gives them a wave before driving down the road and disappearing around the corner. Dean kicks sand off his boots before he slips into the Impala and rubs heat back into his hands.

“What are you thinking?” Cas asks, his voice quiet, low. Tense.

“I’m thinking we drown this sucker once and for all,” Dean says.

“That’s your plan?” Cas asks.

“Yes, that’s my plan.”

“That’s not a plan.”

Dean sighs. The buzz under his skin makes his fingers itch, makes him shift in his seat.

“This is dangerous,” Cas says. “It’s—it’s reckless.”

“How the hell is this reckless?” Dean asks. “This is a hunt. We’re hunting something. This is how we do it, we find the thing and we kill it.”

“Dean, we don’t even know if it’s dangerous,” Cas says.

“Connect the dots, Cas,” Dean says, turning to look at him. He holds up a finger and says, “Jack Hart comes into contact with these things. Says he hears them. He goes on a killing spree a week later.” Dean holds up another finger. “Jack Hart gets murdered by three men. Two days later, Willie hears it, too, and kills Duncan and Earl.”

Cas shakes his head. “I’m not sure.”

“Yeah?” Dean asks. “And why is that?”

“I don’t know,” Cas snaps. “You just need to trust me.  I know I remember—something.”

“Well ‘something’ ain’t helping, Cas.”

Cas glares at him. Dean’s heartbeat quickens, his skin burns. Cas exhales, sharp, rubs his hand across his mouth, fingers scraping over his stubble. Long fingers, strong hands. Strong enough to rip fish apart.

Cas could rip into him, tear him apart. Pull him open and bury himself inside, hold him down, drown him. Dean shifts in his seat. The buzz under his skin thrums, the ringing in his ears grows. He wants to scratch at something, wants to sink his teeth into something.

“You pissed at me?” he asks. “Huh?”

“Dean,” Cas grits out.

He’d let him. Dean would let Cas tear him apart, mark up his insides, claim him so no one else can.

“Reckless,” Dean snorts. “Like you’ve never done anything reckless.”

“I have,” Cas says. “And usually it was a mistake.”

“What about the other night,” Dean says. “Was that a mistake?”

Cas swallows, doesn’t say anything.

“You didn’t seem to care about being reckless then,” Dean says. He gets a hand on Cas’s thigh, squeezes. He tugs himself closer, nuzzles at his cheek, nudges the spot behind his ear, the one that makes Cas close his eyes, makes his breath catch. “You kinda seemed to like it.”

Cas clenches his jaw.

“Was starting to think you didn’t have it in you,” Dean tells him. He fingers the clasp of Cas’s belt. “That you were gonna be afraid to touch me forever.”

“Dean,” Cas warns.

“You afraid to touch me, Cas?” Dean asks, nipping at Cas’s jaw.

Cas snaps, slamming him back into the door hard enough to hurt, and crashes into him, kisses him with more teeth than anything. Cas shoves him down flat onto the seat, crawls forward so he’s straddling his chest, pinning him. Dean yanks at his jeans, pulls the zipper down to get Cas out. He’s hard already, hot to the touch. Cas scrapes a hand through his hair as Dean mouths at him, breathes against his skin. Cas shifts, knees pressing into the door on either side of Dean’s head, pulling it back and nudging himself against his bottom lip.

With a moan Dean lets him in, digs his fingers into his sides and pulls him closer with his hands, knocking Cas off balance and making him grab onto the back of the seat. Cas makes a noise when he slides in deep, not deep enough. Dean scratches at his hips, encourages Cas to fuck into his mouth, thighs shaking, working himself into a pant. He moves his hand off the back of the seat to cup Dean’s face, rubs his thumb where Dean’s mouth is stretched around him, up his cheek, collects the moisture leaking from his eyes as Dean fights to breathe.

It’s over quick. Dean hums and Cas grunts, buckles forward and spills out on his tongue, down his throat, bitter and salty-sweet. His grip tightens under Dean’s jaw and he doesn’t pull out, says, “Swallow it.”

With Cas’s hand wrapped around his neck, Dean does, almost chokes on it. Cas pulls back enough for Dean to get his tongue on him, drag it up the underside of him, get him clean before he pulls out. Dean gasps and coughs, takes in deep, gulping breaths.

“Good,” Cas whispers. “You’re so good, Dean.”

He licks his mouth open, pulls his fly down, gets his hand inside Dean’s jeans. Dean bucks his hips, lets out a groan when Cas gets his palm around him, gets him wet and throbbing in his fist, pumps him until he’s coming hard enough to make his vision goes fuzzy.

When he comes down his ears are still ringing, loud enough to nearly block out every other noise. They rearrange themselves, clean up the best they can, and Dean touches his hands to the window, gets his palms wet with cool moisture and brings them to his face, flushed and overheated. His throat feels raw. The hum under his skin is quiet, dormant for now.

“I can’t get this ringing outta my head,” Dean says. “It’s giving me a fucking headache.”

Cas looks at him, still out of breath. “Ringing?”

“Yeah,” Dean says. “This high-pitched noise—like after a rock concert.”

Cas stares at him.

“Never mind,” Dean says.

Cas sighs and says, “I suspected as much.”

Dean’s stomach tightens. “Suspected what?”

###  **Six**

There’s a diner just out of town Sam calls them from. It’s a bit run-down and the menu isn’t very large, but at least the windows aren’t covered in grime and no one inside is smoking. Sam waves them over as soon as they come through the door.

“What’s all this?” Dean asks when he sits down. Sam’s got papers spread all over the table, photocopies of old newspapers from the library and records that he probably had to lie to get.

“Research,” Sam says.

The waitress comes over to take their order. Dean gets a coffee and Cas orders tea and a brownie.

“The other day I was reading an article about a merchant ship that went down just off the coast in 1967,” Sam explains. “The article said it was most likely brought down by an enemy sub, but I was able to ID the ship and found a local report on it.”

He lets Cas read the photocopy, then slides it across the table for Dean to pick up.

“‘Large, unidentified object in the water,’” he reads.

“They went out to investigate and found nothing. No ice, no rocks, nothing,” Sam says.

“Okay.” Dean hands the photocopy back. “So?”

“So.” Sam pulls out another photocopy. “That’s not the only one. In 1917, there was a ferry accident, and in 1867, a record number of boating accidents, and a ship went down where all twenty-one passengers died. Another accident in 1817. There’s also wreckage of a ship dating from the early 1760’s found in the area—I’m gonna guess 1767.”

“Fifty years,” Cas says. Sam nods at him.

“It’s a pattern,” he says.

“That would make sense,” Cas says, turning to Dean. “If it’s a nesting period like the detective said—that must be it.”

“Nesting period?” Sam asks.

“Sharma’s story, about the creatures sleeping at the bottom of the ocean,” Dean says. “Every so often they wake up and cause all sorts of weird shit. She said the locals call it The Nesting.”

Sam frowns. “So those things on the beach—”

“Caviars,” Dean says.

“Eggs,” Cas nods. “The mother must have laid them in the water—that’s what brought Jack Hart’s boat down. Then they washed up on shore. I think it infected me when I touched it. Whether it was the egg itself or the substance on it, I’m not sure. But I think it infected Jack, too.”

“Okay,” Sam says. “But that doesn’t explain how the others got infected.”

“We think it’s passed on through, uh. Direct contact,” Dean says. He shifts uncomfortably in his seat, looks down at his hands. He thumbs the menu absentmindedly and says, “Which, uh. Would explain how I got it.”

Sam blinks at him. “You—you’re infected, too?”

“Cas thinks so, yeah,” Dean says.

Sam thinks about it for a minute. “But, wait. If both you and Cas got it, then how come I don’t? I’ve been with you both practically this whole time and I feel fine.”

Dean closes his eyes. “Body fluids, Sam. Direct contact with body fluids.”

Sam goes still. Cas fiddles with his fork.

“Oh,” Sam says. He clears his throat and says, “Uh. Right.”

Dean rubs at his eye with his finger, looks out the window.

Sam bites his lip and looks at him. “It’s none of my business, but, uh. Don’t you think, maybe, you guys are playing a bit fast and loose, there?”

“Jesus Christ, Sam.”

“Look, I don’t—I’m just saying—”

“Well fucking _don’t_.”

Sam sighs.

“Jack Hart had to have bled on the three men who killed him,” Cas says, getting the conversation back on track. “That’s mostly likely how it was transferred between them. It was in the blood.”

“Right,” Sam says. “So, is there a timeframe? I mean, Jack Hart didn’t lash out until a week after he came into contact with the thing. Willie went on a killing spree two days later. It’s been four days for you.”

“I have a theory about that,” Cas says. Sam sits up a little straighter and Cas says, “Jack Hart reacted violently. When Willie came into contact with the infection through him, his symptoms were the same. Extreme violence. I touched the egg directly. My symptoms are, uh. Different.”

“Different how?”

Cas hesitates before he says, “Um. Sexual.”

Sam very obviously holds back from making a face.

“And I have a theory about that, too,” Cas continues. “The egg that Mr. Hart came into contact with probably wasn’t fertilized. The one I did was. Different chemicals, different hormones, they’ll produce different symptoms.”

“Basically Cas touched monster-jizz and now he’s like a dog with a bone,” Dean says.

Sam grimaces. “ _Really_ , Dean?”

“I thought it’d break the tension,” Dean shrugs.

“Okay, well. What do we do?” Sam asks.

“Sharma is getting us coordinates,” Dean says. “Until then, just do what you do best.”

Sam gathers up his photocopies. The waitress comes back with Cas’s brownie.

///

The sun is starting to set by the time an old Buick pulls into the cottage driveway. Sharma kicks mud off her boots before she dumps them at the front door and hands Dean a file. She pulls off her jacket and looks around the room. “You guys squatting here or something?”

“Shockingly, no.” Dean frowns down at the file. “We paid for this dump in full.”

“Yikes,” Sharma says.

Sam gets out of his chair and comes over to her, hand first.

“Detective Sharma,” he says. “I don’t think we’ve properly met.”

“Please, call me Nadine,” she says, taking his hand.

“Nadine,” Sam smiles.

Dean rolls his eyes and flips the page over. There’s a photocopy of what looks like a page from a high school textbook underneath, with a black-and-white drawing of stone stairs leading up to a gathering of pillars.

“What is this?” he asks, making his way over to the table where Sam’s handing Nadine a mug of tea and Cas is sitting with his laptop open, fired up and ready to go. Nadine takes the sheet from him, mug in her opposite hand.

“That’s where the coordinates point to,” she says. “About forty feet deep or so there’s a ruin. When the water levels are low enough some of its pillars stick out. All the sailors know about it so they avoid it.”

“Did Jack Hart know?” Cas asks.

Nadine nods. “Most likely, yes. He’s been here a few years and he’s fished in the area since he arrived.”

Sam picks up the photocopy and Cas leans in closer to read.

“So, it’s an island?” Sam asks.

“Sort of,” Nadine says. “More like Atlantis. An island under the water. It’s not very big.”

“Wait,” Cas says. He takes the sheet from Sam. “I recognize this.”

“You’ve read about it?” Nadine asks.

Cas shakes his head. “No, I’ve been there.”

Nadine gapes at him, looks across the table to Sam.

“Cas is, uh. Older than he looks,” he says.

“Has anyone explored the island?” Cas asks her. “Scubadivers, scientists, anyone?”

“Lots of people have,” Nadine says.

“Did any of them find anything?” Cas asks. “Anything old. Ancient. Or unusual. Uh, possibly perceived as valuable. An artifact. It’d be a—a sphere, most likely. Made out of stone, with etching. Unusual-looking.”

Nadine eyes him for a moment. Then she reaches behind her, to her jacket hanging over the back of her chair, and pulls out a pamphlet. Wordlessly she peels it open, unfolds it on the table, then slides it across to where Cas is sitting.

“Something like that?” she asks.

On the page, in the top corner, there’s a ball. It’s made out of white stone. Its entire surface is covered with intricate designs and symbols contained within thick carved bands stretching out like ripples. On the inside of the bands there’s lines and lines of Enochian.

“Where did you get this?” Cas asks.

“It’s from the museum,” Nadine says. “The owner died and her son is selling the building. He’s holding an auction for any curators. There’s signs up all over town. That’s one of the items going up. Local history said some deep-sea divers found it in a wreck a long time ago.”

“No, that’s not right,” Cas says.

“Cas, what is it?” Dean asks, and Cas looks at him.

“This thing. This—this sphere. I’ve seen it before. A long time ago. It’s angelic.”

“Is it a weapon?” Dean asks.

Cas shakes his head. “No. I can’t read the writing at this size but I think these are protective spells. But I think—I know these are connected. This object, the eggs. The island—all of it.”

“So what do we do?” Nadine asks.

“First, we get the sphere,” Cas says.

Nadine crosses her arms. “And how do you plan on doing that?”

“You’re a detective,” Dean says. “Can’t you just, like, confiscate it for evidence, or something?”

“That thing has been on display since before I was born,” Nadine says. “Besides, other than Jack Hart and William Hill, we don’t have an on-going case, and I can’t really connect a museum artifact to a spontaneous murder spree. And it’s too risky, everyone in town knows me.”

“We’ll go to the auction, then,” Sam says.

Nadine snorts out a laugh. “No offense, but you’d stand out like a sore thumb. The only people who are going are curators and snobs who have more money than sense. Anyway, it’s invite-only.”

“Can you get us on the list?” Dean asks.

Nadine grumbles and Dean grins.

///

Nadine leaves with a promise to get back to them as soon as she can.

“If I get fired because of this there’s going to be hell to pay,” she says, shoving her arms into the sleeves of her jacket. Sam walks her to her car and they spend the rest of the evening trying to find any information they can about the island, Sam and Dean sitting at the table and Cas on the couch.

By midnight, Dean’s wired on coffee and Cas is fast asleep, phone abandoned on the table, and they’ve got a few pages of a notebook filled up about ancient guardians and sunken islands. Most of the lore they’ve found originates off the Gulf of Mexico, but there’s a few scattered along the Northern coast.

Dean pours himself another mug of coffee and heads back to the table. Sam watches him, taps his pen on his notebook, mouth curling upwards.

“So,” he says. “You and Cas, huh?”

Dean looks up at him but doesn’t say anything.

“Kinda figured that would happen eventually,” Sam says.

“What, are you bragging, or something?” Dean asks. “Do you want a medal?”

Sam snorts and Dean rolls his eyes, goes back to his computer. They’re quiet for a few minutes before Sam speaks again.

“I’m happy for you, you know,” he says.

“Dude—”

“Just listen,” Sam says. “I know you’re allergic to, like, healthy communication. But I mean it. You guys have had this thing going on for years, and I know you’ve been—whatever. I’m just—I’m happy for you, is all.”

Dean scratches his thumb along the handle of his mug.

“Yeah,” he says.

Sam smiles at him. Then he says, “Don’t fuck it up.”

Dean mutters something rude under his breath. Sam grins to himself and types something up on his laptop. Dean watches Cas sleep, curled up on the couch with the blanket pulled up to his chin, arm folded under his pillow.

Quietly, Dean says, “I’m trying not to.”

###  **Seven**

The auction is held two days later, which gives them enough time to get their suits dry-cleaned and for Dean to trim the dying ends of Sam’s hair in the kitchen. Cas spends most of that time down at the beach behind their cottage, staring out over the water.

Dean finds him sitting in the sand the afternoon of the auction, his coat done up to his chin and his face cold from the wind. Cas doesn’t look at him when Dean comes to stand next to him.

He can’t see anything through the fog, but he can feel it. The pulse, the hum under his skin, like it’s coming up from the ground beneath him, vibrating out of the water. The ringing in his ears has picked up a broken rhythm, a tune. He’s heard a tape of whales singing once, deep and booming. It sounds the same. Eerie. Lonely.

“She’s calling to them,” Cas says.

Dean reaches down and touches Cas’s shoulder. He feels heat in his palm, a tug in his gut, the one that makes him want to roll over and let Cas do whatever he wants to him. It takes every ounce of his energy not to drop to his knees and crawl into his lap. The cold helps.

“We should go,” Dean says.

Cas inhales, slow. Exhales. Then he nods.

“Yes,” he says.

He gets off the ground, dusts off his jeans, and follows Dean back into the cottage.

///

Nadine meets them at the museum. Dean barely recognizes her. She’s got her hair down, curled at her shoulders, and she’s decked out in a fancy, colorful dress. She waits for them in the parking lot, smiling to people who nod to her as they pass by.

“You boys clean up nice,” she says when they’re within earshot, her heels clicking on the pavement.

“Could say the same for you,” Dean says, tucking his hands into his pockets. Nadine gives him a small curtsy before getting down to business.

“There’s security. I know two of the guards. I don’t know the one posted on the side door. The artifacts are available for viewing before the auction, but your best bet is to wait until everyone is seated, otherwise it’ll raise suspicion too soon and you’re more likely to get caught.”

“How are we going to get it out?” Sam asks.

“I have no idea,” Nadine says. “My job is to get you inside, not get you out. If you get caught, you’re on your own. If you rat me out, I’ll have you arrested on the spot.”

They shuffle awkwardly.

“Well,” Dean says. “Not like we’ve haven’t had any luck stealing stuff from auctions before.”

Sam makes a face at him and Dean shrugs.

“Once you get it away from here, we’ll talk,” Nadine says. “Until then, just keep your head down and act like you have a right to be here. People generally fall for that.”

“Thanks, Nadine,” Sam says.

“Don’t thank me,” Nadine says. “Just do what I say.”

Sam’s mouth twitches and Nadine starts walking, leading them to the front door. Dean smacks Sam in the chest and Sam shoves him away with his elbow. Behind them, Cas sighs.

///

The building is an old farmhouse converted into a museum. One of the bigger rooms has been transformed into the auction hall, fold-out chairs lined up along the walls with the podium standing proud at the front. All the artifacts are lined up down the front entrance way and through various rooms for viewing.

Most of the crowd is dressed to the nines in suits and ties and fancy dresses. There’s a few servers posted at entranceways with trays of cheese and wine. Dean grabs two glasses as he passes and hands one to Cas, nudging him towards a corner.

“Look like we’re mingling,” he says.

“What?” Cas asks.

“Just—drink your wine.”

Cas hesitates before taking a gulp. He licks his lips after.

“This is good,” he decides.

“Yeah, 2014 was a good year for the blood of Christ,” Dean says.

Cas glares at him. Sam and Nadine come back a minute later. Nadine hands him a program and slips a key into his palm.

“The auction starts in two hours,” she says. “They’re going to start putting away the artifacts in an hour, in a locked room next to the hall. I think it used to be a kitchen.”

Dean looks at the key. “Why’d you give this to me?”

“Because you look like you know how to get into places you have no right being in,” she says.

Dean frowns. “Are you flirting with me?”

Nadine smiles. “Sorry. I like taller men.”

Sam chokes on his wine.

“I suggest you get a move on,” Nadine continues, nodding towards the locked door.

Dean glances at Sam, who pulls out his phone and nods. Dean steals his breath and pulls away from them, moves towards the locked door. He grabs a piece of cheese as he passes the nearest server, careful not to make eye contact, and shoves it in his mouth. The teeth of the key dig into his palm.

He hovers awkwardly by the door. Nadine laughs loudly in the corner, making a few people turn their heads. She grabs onto Sam’s arm for show. Cas drinks his wine. Carefully, he presses back against the door, blindly feels for the lock with his hands. He manages to get the key in and twist it. The door opens with a quiet click and he pushes back, gets a foot into the room, and slips inside.

It’s small, made smaller by tables lined up, ready to be rolled out. Dean takes stock of his options. There’s a cupboard on the far side of the room, the wall jutting out to make a crevice, and a window facing the backyard along the same wall. The door to the auction hall is to his left, and the door to the patio to his right. There’s a man standing outside with his back turned.

Dean pulls out his phone and texts Sam about the guard. Nadine said she didn’t know him. Dean improvises.

“Hey,” he says, opening the patio door. The guard jumps and turns around to look at him. He’s young, slender. His name tag says “Gavin.” Dean could probably take him in a fight, but knocking him out now would be a bad move. Instead, Dean says, “Hey, uh. Gavin. You got a smoke, by any chance?”

“Uh,” Gavin says. Dean holds his breath, but the guard pats his pockets and produces a pack of cigarettes. He lets Dean take one and Dean pulls out his lighter, grins around the filter as he lights it.

“Kinda boring job, isn’t it?” he asks, inhaling. The taste of tobacco floods his mouth. The smoke makes his eyes sting.

“Pays good.” Gavin shrugs, pulling out his own cigarette.

There’s no way Dean can stand here small-talking some twiggy college-graduate for an hour.

Dean taps the ash of his cigarette and says, “You like cars, Gavin?”

///

They start bringing the artifacts in after an hour. Dean tries to stomp feeling back into his feet as he listens to the volunteers inside line objects up on the tables, metal clinking together and wheels squeaking on the floor. The cold air bites at his skin. His fingers feel numb.

Gavin’s nametag weighs his breast pocket down. So far only one person has spoken to him, some broad-shouldered guy trying to find the bathroom. Dean told him to look for the room with the toilet. The guy grumbled curses at him under his breath.

Sam texts him: _People going into auction hall._

Dean looks over his shoulder. There’s one volunteer left, standing by the door. She’s not paying attention, waiting for her cue to wheel in the first table. On another table, one close to the wall, Dean sees it. The sphere. It’s about the size of a basketball and looks heavy as hell.

“Gotcha,” Dean says. He texts Sam.

He’s only going to have only a few seconds to sneak back inside and grab the thing when the volunteer leaves. If he’s lucky it’s not as heavy as it looks. He bites his lip and pushes the door open slightly, just enough that he can hear the auctioneer’s voice ring out from the room over.

The auctioneer goes through the rules of the auction, then announces that they’re beginning. Dean holds his breath and pushes the door open further, stands so he’s leaning against the door frame. The volunteer doesn’t seem to notice, still waiting for her big moment. The auctioneer announces the first table and she reaches behind her, grabs onto it, and rolls it out.

The door shuts behind her. Dean slips into the room and makes his way over to the sphere.

“Please don’t be cursed,” he mutters. He didn’t have time to look for gloves.

He reaches forward and gets his hands around it. Nothing happens. The surface feels cool to the touch, the carvings scratching his palms. Carefully, he lifts it. It’s heavy, but not unmanageably so. He sees a shadow move underneath the door on the far side.

“Dean?” Sam whispers from the doorway behind him.

“Get down!” Dean snaps. “She’s coming back.”

The door opens and Dean ducks behind the table, sphere still in hand. He watches the woman’s shoes from underneath the tablecloth as she comes to stand by the next table. The auctioneer calls out numbers, announces the winner. The crowd claps quietly. The woman scratches the back of her leg with her shoe. Dean tries to keep his breathing quiet.

Finally, the auctioneer announces the second batch and the woman disappears, pulling the next table out with her. Dean doesn’t waste any time, tucking the sphere under his arm and darting for the door. He shuts it behind him and crashes into Sam.

“Take it,” Dean shoves the sphere into his arms. Sam yelps and nearly drops it.

With a frown, Cas reaches out and pulls the nametag off Dean’s suit jacket.

“Don’t ask,” Dean says.

///

They drive back to the cottage with Gavin shouting at them from the trunk.

No one says anything.

///

Nadine reaches their cottage after midnight. After Dean’s made Gavin a bowl of soup and given him beer and managed to convince him he’s not being kidnapped and talked him out of pressing charges. Gavin agrees to stay silent for three hundred bucks, which they manage to pool together and send him off just before Nadine arrives, changed back into a pair of jeans and her usual jacket.

“That’s it?” she asks, nodding to the sphere on the table.

“That’s it,” Dean says.

Cas has been running his hands over the surface for the last five minutes, reverent, eyes closed as he reads over the Enochian symbols with the tips of his fingers, muttering quietly under his breath.

“What’s it say, Cas?” Sam asks.

“I think it’s a key,” Cas says between words of Enochian. “And—protection. I was right.”

He opens his eyes and leans back in his chair, blinks at the sphere.

“These sea creatures, there must be something on the island that they’re guarding. It could be a crypt with angelic weapons. Removing the sphere woke them in the first place.”

“Guardians?” Nadine asks. Cas nods.

“You said a diver found the sphere. The first shipwreck was in 1792, so someone must have taken it in the first place. Dumped it. Woke the creatures,” Cas says. “I’m guessing they’re Muriel’s. She was fond of creatures.”

“And Muriel is?” Nadine asks.

“She was one of my sisters,” Cas says. “She was an angel.”

“Oh,” Nadine says. Then she adds, “I’m sorry.”

“Any word on how to kill them?” Dean asks.

Cas visibly tenses. He shakes his head.

“I told you, they’re not violent,” he says.

“Well their eggs are infectious,” Dean says. “And they’re causing wrecks and turning people into murderers.”

“For the last time, Dean, I’m not killing them,” Cas snaps.

Dean stares at him. Cas stares back. Sam clears his throat.

“So, what’s the plan?” he asks.

“I think we need to bring the sphere back to the island,” Cas says. “If we return it, that should settle them, put them to rest permanently.”

“You mean, the island that’s under water?” Sam asks.

“There’s a spell here to raise it,” Cas says.

“Naturally,” Sam says.

“We just need a way to get out there,” Cas says. “Unfortunately the only sailors we know are dead, and even if they weren’t, they didn’t seem too willing to help us in the first place.”

“That’s not a problem,” Nadine says. Cas looks at her and she grins. “I have a boat.”

###  **Eight**

It’s freezing down at the pier. The rain pelts down like ice pellets, and the sky is dark, thunder rumbling overhead. Even dressed in his wool overcoat Dean’s shivering, huddled up against the boat’s wheelhouse to try and stay out of the wind as Nadine gets the motor going.

Cas creeps upstairs with two mugs of coffee and hands one to him. Dean takes it wordlessly, wrapping his hands around it and taking a drink. His stomach is already rolling with the waves and the thought of going out into the water. The fog is thick enough that he can barely see off the bow.

“This is a bad idea,” he mutters.

“We’ll be fine,” Cas says.

Dean shakes his head. “This whole case is a bad idea.”

Cas takes a drink from his mug. Nadine lets out a triumphant shout as the boat pulls away from the dock. Sam bends over the railing and gives Dean the thumbs up. Dean just shrugs further into his coat.

“Do you want to come inside?” Cas asks, pressing closer. “It’s warmer.”

There’s a promise there. Dean licks his lips. He could go downstairs, let Cas warm him up, try and forget about this whole mess, let the buzz under his skin do its thing for a little bit. But he shakes his head, moves away from Cas’s warmth.

“Nah,” he says. “I’m good.

///

He knows they’re getting close because the ringing in his ears becomes almost deafening.

The water crashes up against something just ahead of the boat. The shore is nowhere to be seen, lost to the fog and the storm. He’s soaked to the bone and shivering, his coat weighed down with rain and seawater. Nadine and Sam look just as bad, their hair plastered to their faces and clothes dripping.

“This is it,” Nadine shouts over the wind.

“You see anything?” Sam asks.

“No,” Dean shouts up at them. There’s nothing to see but clouds and rain and black water. But the hum pulses in his bones, creeps up from the bottom of the boat. His vision goes fuzzy with it, his stomach rolls. Cas appears next to him, staring out over the water, looking dazed.

Dean’s head throbs.

“We have to raise it,” Cas says. The sphere’s in his arms. Water sloshes over the side of the boat as Cas starts muttering something under his breath. He moves his hands over the sphere, tracing the words with his fingertips.

With a loud groan the boat starts to shake and Dean rushes over to the side, white knuckles the railing as he empties his stomach into the water.

“The fuck is happening?” Nadine shouts.

Dean slumps down onto the wet floor, lets his head fall back against the wall. The boat threatens to shake apart under them. Sam climbs out of the wheelhouse, grabs him by the shoulder, tries to pick him up again before stumbling forward and nearly kneeing Dean in the face.

The water goes still. The rain stops and the boat quiets. Dean inhales, tasting salt and vomit and leftover tobacco. Sam looks around them, frantic, his hand still on his shoulder. Cas is still muttering under his breath.

Something pierces through the dark, a light glowing bright red. It moves, turns, and one red light becomes two, then three, then four. They blink one right after another, all in a row. Dean grabs onto Sam’s arm.

“Sam,” he breathes. Sam looks at him and Dean points. Sam turns around to look and jumps, startled, hitting the wall with his knee.

“Jesus,” he says.

The thing moves, a dark shape in the clouds, the red lights of its eyes shooting up into the sky until they tower above the boat, thirty, fifty, a hundred feet high and climbing higher. Underneath it, something wet and covered in green peeks out from the water, slowly inches its way up, rivers running off the sides of it.

Nadine joins them, mouth open in awe as the island rises out of the water, underneath the shadow of the creature. The thing doesn’t move, just continues to blink down at them, eerily calm, still.

The island finally stops growing, sticking out of the water like a sore thumb, twenty stories high at least. The pillars at the top are cracked and broken, pieces threatening to fall off. A jagged staircase leads upwards, wraps around the outside, covered in seaweed and brine.

Cas stops muttering, his shoulders drooping. He drops to the floor and Dean is up in an instant, rushing over to him.

“Dean,” Cas says when Dean reaches him.

“Hey,” Dean says. “You okay?”

Cas clenches his eyes closed, blinks them open again.

“I think so,” he says. “Can you hear it?”

Dean shakes his head. “Nothing.”

Cas glances upwards, towards the sky.

“She’s stopped singing,” he says.

Dean swallows. He doesn’t want to look up.

“Yeah,” he says.

“I remember this place,” Cas says. Dean helps him up off the floor and Cas says, “I was here when the angels first sunk the island. It was larger, then. Inhabited. Humans and monsters living harmoniously. Naomi--she erased it from me. I found it…upsetting, that they sank it. Muriel had created the creatures to guard it. Water Sleepers.”

“Water Sleepers?” Dean asks.

“ _Hcoma brgdo._ ” Cas nods. “That’s what she called them.”

Dean glances up at the red eyes watching them.

“And they’re peaceful?” he asks.

Cas watches the creature closely.

“Yes,” he says, but he sounds uncertain. “They’re peaceful.”

///

Sam and Nadine stay behind on the boat. Nadine gives Dean a radio and two flashlights, offers both him and Cas ponchos, but they’re already dripping from rain and shivering, so it’s no use. The island isn’t big, won’t take them long to reach the top. An hour at most, depending on the footing.

Nadine navigates the boat as close to the ledge as she can. Cas hops off first, landing surefooted and steady, sphere in hand. He helps Dean onto the ground. There are more eggs here, lined along the surface and stuck to the sides of the island, the black things inside pulsating, the outer surfaces cracking, ready to hatch.

They make it ten minutes before the wind picks up. Another five before there’s a rumble of thunder and rain starts to fall, making the surface slipperier. Dean’s boots slide on the rock and Cas grabs him before he can fall off the ledge.

“She’s trying to deter us,” he says.

“That’s encouraging,” Dean says. “Wasn’t there supposed to be two of these things?”

Cas nods. “Her mate. She’s probably eaten him by now.”

Dean stares at him.

“Come on,” Cas says, grabbing his wrist and leading him onwards.

It starts to hail when they get closer to the top.

The creature—the Water Sleeper—moves around them, shaking the ground with her footsteps, the water splashing and creating large, curling waves that crash against the side of the rock. Lightning cracks sky and outlines the thing’s form, the crooked, blade-like legs. The tentacles of her mouth twist and writhe like dangling snakes. Everything smells like salt and fish and makes Dean’s insides turn.

The ringing picks up, loud enough that Dean wobbles on his feet. One of the eggs close to them cracks. Cas grabs him by the collar of his coat, hefts him up again, and pushes him forward.

“We’re almost there,” he says.

He tastes blood. He smells blood. His vision is going dark. He barely feels Cas’s hand on his arm. They finally hit the last step and the island flattens out into a plateau surrounded by towering rocks. At the back there’s a cave, dipping down into the island, its giant maw a dark, threatening hole.

Cas drags him inside and everything goes still. Dean exhales, blinks his vision clear. Cas hands him a flashlight and clicks his own on. The cave dips down in a gradual slope. Dean keeps his hand on Cas’s arm and follows him inside.

///

It doesn’t take them long to find the crypt.

Light shines down from cracks in the ceiling, dusty grey-blue. Water drips down the walls in a steady trickle. There’s seaweed and sludge stuck to everything, dead fish on the floor, a few still twitching. There’s boxes and trunks warded with angel sigils, Enochian scripture scratched into the wall.

In the far corner of the room there’s a podium with a ball-shaped hole in the center.

“Yahtzee,” Dean says. He nudges Cas’s shoulder and points to the podium.

Cas doesn’t move. His grip on the sphere tightens.

“Hey,” Dean says, coming to stand in front of him. Cas looks up at him. Dean’s hand tightens on Cas’s coat. “We’re here, Cas. Let’s put this thing back and get the hell outta dodge, huh? The sooner we get back to the bunker the sooner you can catch up on _True Detective_.”

Cas’s eyes move to the podium behind him, then back to Dean.

“This is going to kill them,” he says.

Dean shakes his head. “I don’t know, Cas.”

“You wouldn’t care, if it did,” Cas says. “I told you they were peaceful.”

Dean licks his lips. “Look, we can fight about my morals later. This place is creeping me out.”

“Muriel, she was good. She was pure. She wouldn’t—she wouldn’t make something that would hurt people,” Cas says. A drop of blood falls from his nose. “She wouldn’t make something bad.”

“Okay.” Dean holds up his hands. “I believe you, okay? They’re good.”

“No, you don’t,” Cas says. “You don’t trust me.”

“I do, Cas. You know I do,” Dean says.

Cas shakes his head, clenches his eyes. He wobbles slightly. “How can you? I’ve killed hundreds—thousands of people. I’ve murdered my brothers and sisters in cold blood. I’ve—I’ve hurt you. More times than I care to count, I’ve hurt you.”

Dean’s hands drop. “Cas—”

“I wanted to make this right,” Cas says. “I wanted—the angels, they left me. After they sunk they island. They brought me back and they reconditioned me. I didn’t want them to sink the island. I think I—I think I did this. I think I woke them up.”

Dean stares at him. Cas clenches his eyes closed again, shakes his head. Blood runs from his nose, down his lip.

He says, “It was me. I did this. I woke them up, Dean.”

Dean swallows. Nods. Says, “Okay.”

Cas grips the sphere tighter.

“I don’t want to hurt them. I don’t want to hurt anyone anymore,” he says. “I just want to make this right.”

“You are,” Dean says, stepping closer. Cas shakes his head again and Dean reaches out, cups his face. “Hey, look at me. This is going to make it right. Whatever you did, way back when, it doesn’t matter, okay?”

Cas breathes shakily, eyes still closed.

“You can do this,” Dean says.

Cas nods, inhales, steadier. He rolls his shoulders back and opens his eyes, looks up at the podium. Slowly he makes his way over to it, careful not to step on any of the dead fish, avoiding loose rocks and puddles.

Dean watches as he lifts the sphere up, arms shaking, and with a growl, teeth-bared, he hefts it up onto the podium. The sphere rolls towards the center and settles into place. Cas steps back and exhales. Dean comes to stand next to him, claps him on the shoulder.

The sphere clicks, and suddenly light pierces out from the etchings, white-blue and blinding. The light circles outwards, travels down the podium and spiders into the floor, lighting up more symbols that were hidden under mud and sea-grime. The light keeps moving, slicing into the walls and upwards towards the ceiling, back down the corridor they came in from.

“Huh,” Dean says, looking up towards the hole in the ceiling.

Beside him, Cas tenses.

“We need to get out of here,” he says. “Now.”

“What?” Dean asks.

From outside there comes a loud, deafening screech. Dean throws his hands up to his ears to try and block it out. There’s a crack of lightning overhead, the sound of waves crashing, then a boom as the entire cave shakes.

“The hell is that?” Dean shouts.

Cas grabs his hand and yanks him towards the corridor. There’s a loud roar followed by another boom. Pieces of the wall start breaking off in chunks, raining down onto the floor. Dean nearly trips on one, managing to jump over it as the last second as Cas tugs him around a corner.

“What’s happening?” he asks. The ground shakes, and from behind them the wall bursts open, sending boulders scattering along the floor.

“She’s breaking the island apart,” Cas says, out of breath. “She’s fighting back. We’ve reset the sphere, which means she’s being sent back into the ocean. Her young will die.”

The island shakes around them again as another wall crumbles apart behind them.

“If she keeps that up we’re gonna die,” Dean says.

Cas shakes his head. “She could destroy the whole eastern coast.”

“Great,” Dean says. “So much for peaceful.”

Cas grabs him and drags him around the corner again. The surface is at least a ten minute walk. They can reach it quicker if they run, but the walls are caving in around them, the stairs are slippery, and the ground is shaking with every hit the island takes. But Cas runs and Dean has no choice but to follow.

The island groans under them when they reach the surface. The water is roaring beneath them, the sky flashing overhead and the wind howling. Cas doesn’t waste any time leading him back towards the stairs. Nadine’s boat is nowhere in sight.

The stairs crack under their boots, Dean slipping and trying to keep upright. Cas steadies him the best he can, pushes him closer to the wall, tries to find the best footing for them to make it down the slope quickly.

The creature roars again, red eyes flashing. Something massive comes out of the dark and smashes into the side of the island, a long tentacle that wraps around the rocks and pulls them apart. Overhead, one of the pillars breaks and smashes onto the plateau, bits of rock raining down into the ocean below. Another tentacle comes out of the dark and breaks off a chunk of the island, sending rocks rolling down the stairs, the ground shaking.

“We’re not going to make it,” Cas shouts over the wind. “We’re going to have to jump.”

Dean glances over the ledge and shouts back, “Are you fucking crazy?”

“It’s been questioned,” Cas says.

Dean stares at him. Cas’s mouth twists up in the corner.

“If I die I’m haunting your ass,” Dean says. “You’ll never be able to jerk off in peace.”

Cas says, “Fair enough.”

Dean shakes his head. He tries to ignore the height, the sheer drop off the side of the island. They’re close enough to the surface now that it probably won’t kill them. So there’s that, at least. Cas grips his hand tight, takes a step towards the ledge.

“Here goes nothing,” Dean says. He closes his eyes and jumps.

###  **Nine**

There’s something warm on his face. Soft.

He smells wet wood and salt. Herbs, mint. Something fresh, like oranges. Sweet, dark coffee. It smells like the kitchen back in Lawrence, the windows open over the back porch after a spring shower. Mary’s cooking. Dean tries to listen for her, tries to figure out what song is playing on the radio that she’s humming along to. It might be “Come On Eileen.”

Someone says, “Dean.”

It’s not his mother’s voice, but he recognizes it. Deep, low. Gentle. It rumbles in his bones, makes his heart swoop like he’s on a rollercoaster with his hands in the air. The warm, soft thing moves, something brushing over his bottom lip, and the voice says it again, says, “Dean.”

He opens his eyes. His vision is fuzzy, the light making his head hurt. He closes his eyes again, breathes, reaches up to wipe at his face. His arms feel heavy, sore. There’s a soft blanket over him.

When he opens his eyes again, Cas is looking down at him from the side of a bed in an unfamiliar room. It takes him a minute to realize they’re still on Nadine’s boat, the walls covered in wood panelling, a line of long, narrow windows on either side near the ceiling. For the first time in what feels like forever, he can see sunlight and blue sky.

Dean’s mouth feels like cotton. He swallows.

“My mouth tastes like ass,” he says.

“Can’t say I know what ass tastes like,” Cas says. Dean chooses not to comment on that.

Cas hands him a cup of orange juice and Dean sits up with a groan, leans back against soft pillows so he can drink it down. Cas takes the glass back when he’s done and says, “It’s probably stupid of me to ask, but how are you feeling?”

“Like I got ran over by a transport truck,” Dean says. “And then got hit by a train for good measure.”

“That sounds accurate,” Cas nods.

“What happened?” Dean asks.

Cas sets the glass on the bedside table and turns to face him more directly. His knee presses into Dean’s under the blanket. It’s warm, and if Dean’s arms weren’t feeling so heavy, he’d reach out to touch it.

“The creature destroyed the island,” Cas says. “She knocked over a lighthouse off the coast, nearly took down a ship. Then she ran out of strength and sunk back into the ocean. You hit the water harder than I anticipated and nearly drowned. Nadine and Sam helped us back onto the boat, and you slept all yesterday and most of this morning. As far as we can tell, nothing’s broken.”

“I guess that’s good,” Dean says. “And the—the creature?”

Cas shakes his head. “She’s gone. Her eggs, too. They dried up. They’ll break apart eventually and the pieces will get washed back into the ocean.”

Dean slumps back against the pillows. “I’m sorry, Cas.”

Cas blinks at him. “Why?”

“I know you—I dunno. You wanted things to work out differently,” Dean says.

Cas hums but doesn’t say anything. Dean touches his wrist and Cas looks at him. Dean shifts aside, his back twinging with the effort, and Cas takes the hint, crawls onto the mattress and curls up next to him. Dean turns on his side so they’re facing each other, so Cas can cup his face with his hands, press soft kisses to his mouth.

After a few minutes of barely-there touches Dean presses closer, wraps his hand around the back of Cas’s neck to pull him in, grazes his teeth against his bottom lip before smoothing it down with his tongue. Cas inhales, his grip on Dean’s shoulder tightening briefly before he pulls back, dodges Dean’s next kiss so his mouth lands on his jaw.

“I’m not gonna break, Cas,” Dean murmurs, shifting so he can look down at him.

“You might,” Cas says.

“You’re the one who put me back together,” Dean says. “You saying you don’t trust your own handiwork?”

Cas brushes his cheek with the tips of his fingers, traces across his mouth like he can heal him again, wipe away the pain and the cuts and bruises with a single touch.

“Not always,” he says, quiet.

Dean kisses his fingertips and says, “I do.”

“Always?” Cas asks.

Dean nods. “Yeah, Cas. Always.”

He’s sore and stiff, slow-moving, so Cas helps him peel off his clothes, his t-shirt and the sweatpants that are too big for him, before he strips out of his own. Cas touches him lightly, careful of the sore spots on his arms, his ribs. The sun heats up the room, heats up Cas’s skin under his palms.

They shift, move together, until Cas is covering him, nuzzling the spot under his chin, his hair tickling Dean’s ear. He’s hard where he presses against Dean’s hip. Dean reaches down with one hand, touches him, swipes his thumb across the head of his cock and Cas groans, bites his neck.

Cas moves lower, leaves a trail of kisses down Dean’s chest, his stomach, lower, until he can take him into his mouth, warm and wet. Dean sighs and relaxes back onto the bed, runs his fingers through Cas’s hair as he hums around him, making his hips twitch and his breath catch. Cas pins his hips down with his hands, teases him with his tongue until Dean’s breathing heavy.

He pulls off before things get too heated. His hair sticks up in the back, his cheeks flushed. Dean laughs, quiet and lighthearted, and Cas smiles, shifts until he’s straddling his thighs. He rubs his left hand up Dean’s stomach, over his chest, and wraps his right around them both. When he rocks into it, slides himself into his own fist, against Dean, it’s a hot drag of skin on skin that makes Dean’s back arch.

“I’m sorry,” Cas whispers. He tightens his grip, pushes into it harder. Dean moans and Cas says, “I’m sorry I ever hurt you.”

“Cas,” Dean breathes. He reaches for him, pulls him down so he can kiss him, tangle his hands in his hair again. He rocks up into Cas’s fist, into warmth, grazes his teeth along his jaw.

“I’m sorry,” Cas says again. He presses it against Dean’s ear, into his cheek, his mouth, over and over again as Dean whimpers and clings to him, falling apart as Cas says, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need—I forgive you,” Dean tells him. “Cas, I forgave you a long time ago.”

Cas lets out a sob when he comes, breathing hard into Dean’s mouth, one hand still pinning him down by the shoulder. Dean rubs his palms up his arms, his back, holds him until Cas stops shaking.

“I’m sorry too, y’know,” Dean says after they’ve settled, curled up under the blankets.

“There’s no reason to be,” Cas says. He touches the corner of Dean’s mouth and says, “How was that? I wasn’t too rough?”

“I don’t mind a little rough,” Dean says. “Sometimes.”

“Sometimes,” Cas says, like he’s tasting the word for the first time. Dean smiles.

“It was perfect, Cas,” he says.

Cas holds his face and kisses him and it feels like breaking through the surface, the sun warm on his face, tasting that first deep breath of fresh air.

///

The cottage looks different in the sunlight.

It’s still crooked and dilapidated and should probably be condemned, but it’s cute, in its broken-down, falling-apart kind of way.

Dean been demoted to clean-up duty, gathering up their leftover food in grocery bags and making sure the blankets are folded and there’s no crumbs in between the couch cushions. He’s still a little stiff, moving slower than usual. Sam keeps calling him “grandpa.”

They’re just about finished packing up when a familiar Buick pulls up the drive. Nadine steps out with a grin, her hair pulled up into its usual bun, skin looking soft and smooth in the sun, like warm chocolate.

“You weren’t going to leave without saying goodbye, were you?” she asks. She pulls Dean into a gentle hug when he comes up to meet her, and he closes his eyes, lets himself relax into it. When she pulls back she winks at him, then turns to Sam, standing up on her toes so she can wrap her arms around his neck.

“We were gonna stop by the station,” Sam says.

“Uh-huh,” Nadine says. Sam beams at her. Nadine glances around, then turns to Dean. “Where’s your boyfriend?”

Dean’s cheeks heat. He avoids Sam’s eye as he clears his throat and points behind the cottage, towards the beach. Nadine hums then shakes her head.

“Can’t say I wanna go near the water again anytime soon,” she says.

“Don’t blame you,” Dean says.

“Where do you boys call home, anyway?” she asks.

“Kansas,” Sam says. “Lebanon, specifically.”

“Tell you what,” Nadine says. “You ever make your way back out here again, you have a place to stay. You know that, right? Even though you guys are basically criminals and I should have you arrested for theft and impersonating FBI agents. At the very least.”

Dean smiles. “Sounds good, detective.”

Nadine reaches into her pocket and pulls out her cell phone. She leans closer to Sam and says, “You should give me your number, though. Just in case.”

“Oh,” Sam says. “Um. Right. Yeah—yes. I’ll—of course.”

Dean snorts and Sam glares at him.

He heads back inside the cottage, double-checking to make sure they have everything. Satisfied, he heads out the back door, walks along the grassy slope and makes his way to the beach. The sand sinks under his boots, the dry pebbles click together.

Cas has his eyes closed, face turned towards the sun. The sand clings to the bottom of his shoes, the cuffs of his jeans. The water laps at the shore quietly. Dean comes to stand next to him and Cas opens his eyes, inhales slowly.

“I remember a beach,” he says. “Not unlike this one. I remember sitting at the shoreline, watching a fish pull itself out of the water. One of my brothers—it must have been Michael—he told me not to step on it.”

Dean runs his hand through Cas’s hair.

“My dad’s been dead for years,” he says. “Sometimes I still feel like I’m constantly trying to do right by him. But it’s getting better. Easier.”

Cas doesn’t say anything, just watches the water.

“It will get easier, Cas,” Dean says. “Trust me.”

Cas looks up at him then. “I do.”

Dean smiles and Cas reaches up. Dean helps him up off the ground, steadies him so he can brush sand off the back of his jeans, off the bottom of his coat. Dean doesn’t move his hand and Cas doesn’t shake it off, just takes one last look towards the ocean.

The water shines bright blue, sparkling and calm. Fishing boats sail smoothly in the distance.

 

**Author's Note:**

>  **Warnings include:** show-level violence, non-major character death(s), drowning, characters suffering auditory hallucinations, light dom/sub undertones, and Dean and Cas suffer from sex pollen-esque symptoms that results in rough/unprotected sex and causes Cas some distress shortly after. But this story has a happy ending.
> 
> I’ve never been to Maine and I don’t know much about boating or fishing, so there's probably some inaccuracies. Death-banjo serenaded thank yous to [Nicole](archiveofourown.org/users/saltyfeathers), who looked this over for me and who puts up with my weirdass shenanigans on a daily basis, and to the rest of the capital-s Squad, for their endless support and sheer awesomeness. ❤️


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